Drug-resistant super-gonorrhoea reaches Australia

A drug-resistant super-gonorrhoea infection has made its way to Australian shores, baffling local health authorities as to how they are going to cure those who have contracted the nasty sexually transmitted disease.

Two Australians have now contracted the super-STD that doesn’t respond to normally effective treatment for gonorrhoea. According to Brisbane Times, Queensland Health has confirmed that a case had been recorded in Queensland, while another person in Western Australia has also become infected.

One person is believed to have become infected after a sexual encounter in south-east Asia, while health professionals are still trying to determine how and where the second person picked up the infection. There are fears that overuse of antibiotics has made the STD immune to treatments that typically cure patients of the painful and embarrassing effects of gonorrhoea, which include a smelly green or yellow discharge from the penis or vagina.

Gonorrhoea can also result in bleeding from the genitals and cause pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnancy and infertility in younger women. Because treatments aren’t working, victims of the super-STD are living with these conditions with no cure in sight.

The news comes after a British man developed a case of Neisseria gonorrhoeae that hasn’t responded to any treatment, in what was thought to be the first case of the drug-resistant strain of gonorrhoea. That man had sex with two women – one in the United Kingdom and the other from south-east Asia. When the British lady was given the all-clear after a series of tests, health authorities drew the conclusion that the man contracted the infection in Asia. It also led Public Health England to issue the UK a warning about using condoms when engaging in sexual activity.

Gonorrhoea is one of the most infectious sexually transmitted infections and can easily be passed on from unprotected vaginal, anal and oral sex. It can also be passed from person to person by direct contact with the genitals.

Read more: Ensure your sex life is enjoyable in your 60s and beyond

According to the World Health Organisation, more than one million sexually transmitted infections are acquired around the world each day. This means that 78 million people are becoming infected with gonorrhoea each year, which antibiotic resistance is making tougher to cure.

WHO said the bacteria that caused the diseases were becoming smarter, figuring out ways of evolving to resist new antibiotics, while cheaper and older medication that worked in the past isn’t having the same impact it once did. WHO added that a decrease in condom use, failed treatments and poor infection detection were also contributing to the problem.

In January the Sydney Morning Herald reported that men in their 50s and 60s were less likely to use a condom or have a good understanding of STIs when compared to younger men.  

If concerned, the best thing to do is to visit a GP or sexual health clinic regularly to ensure you haven’t picked up gonorrhoea or other STIs. A survey of men on the dating site RSVP found that fewer than half of men over 60 insisted on using a condom with a new partner, and the same percentage were unaware that people with the STI chlamydia didn’t necessarily show any symptoms.

Meanwhile, the ABC reported in January that STIs amongst over-50s had soared in Queensland over the past four years, with older people contracting chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis at nearly the double the rate of the past. At the same time, rates of infection went down in the under-20s age group.

What do you think? Are you concerned more diseases are becoming immune to drugs and antibiotics that usually work?