Proper treatment is key to slowing the spread of drug-resistant gonorrhea, and the recommended treatment is still azithromycin and ceftriaxone. "The situation is being closely monitored by public health authorities," said the Australian Government Department of Health. However, these documented multi-drug resistant cases are new. Like the UK man, at least one Australian patient most likely acquired the case in Southeast Asia, but it's not a problem isolated to that region of the world.ĭrug-resistant gonorrhea exists in all countries, and there have been signs that completely untreatable gonorrhea is looming in the US and many countries. Those cases also appeared to be resistant to all the antibiotics normally used to treat gonorrhea.
However, two additional cases of super gonorrhea were reported in Australia on April 17. Intravenous drugs need to be administered in an IV drip in a health care setting, so they aren't easy to take - but at least it worked.
The good news is that the UK man was recently cured after three days of intravenous treatment with another antibiotic called ertapenem, according to Public Health England. It is the recommended treatment worldwide for gonorrhea. This antibiotic combo, which consists of a shot (ceftriaxone) and an oral drug (azithromycin), is one of the last relatively easy-to-take treatments for the sexually transmitted infection, which has slowly become resistant to just about every other antibiotic over the decades. Last month, a man in the UK was reported to have one of the first documented cases of gonorrhea that was completely resistant to all antibiotics used to routinely treat the sexually transmitted infection, including azithromycin and ceftriaxone.
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