An Austrian man was infected with a strain of ‘super gonorrhea’ which poses a major global threat. The man was on a trip to Cambodia in April when he had unprotected sex with a prostitute which led him to contracting the disease.
He realized he was unwell when he returned to Austria and felt a burning sensation while urinating and noticed discharge from his penis.
It was revealed after medical tests that he contracted gonorrhea and was instructed to take standard antibiotics. The medicines led to the disappearance of his symptoms but he still tested positive which meant the treatment failed.
Doctors treating him said the strain of gonorrhea was ‘extensively drug resistant’ and not similar to ones seen earlier. They said if allowed to spread unchecked it would render gonorrhea untreatable.
Dr Sonja Pleininger of the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety who authored the report said this strain poses ‘major global public health threat’.
“If such strains manage to establish a sustained transmission, many gonorrhea cases might become untreatable,” Pleininger was quoted as saying by news outlets Khmer Times and Daily Mail.
Fears of super gonorrhea strain rose after a new strain was discovered in the Asia-Pacific. Usually ceftriaxone injected into thigh or buttocks is the prescribed treatment for gonorrhea but the new strain appears to be resistant to it.
If left untreated it can cause infertility and potentially life-threatening pelvic inflammatory disease in women. Fears that it may gain more resistance and become untreatable have also risen following the findings.
Symptoms of gonorrhea and super gonorrhea are the same – pain while urinating, thick yellow or green discharge from the genitals and abnormal bleeding between periods in females.
In pregnant women, it can lead to permanent blindness in newborns.
Using contraceptives can help reduce the chance of catching the sexually-transmitted disease.
The man later tested negative when he was given a dose of amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, a combination antibiotic treatment, for one week.
The Cambodian sex worker, however, remains untraceable posing a risk that another individual may contract and spread the disease.
Over the past few years, gonorrhea strains have developed resistance to antibiotics like ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone, cefixime and azithromycin.
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