A team of researchers announced Monday it has discovered a completely new strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to all currently available antibiotics.
The strain of Neisseria gonorrhoeae was identified in a female sex worker in Japan and now, an international research team has dubbed the superbug H041. They say the strain could transform gonorrhea from what was once an easily treatable sexually transmitted infection into a serious public health threat.
"This is both an alarming and a predictable discovery" said Swedish researcher Dr. Magnus Unemo of the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria in a statement.
He and his team announced the discovery Monday, at the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research conference in Quebec City.
The researchers say H041 is highly resistant to cephalosporin antibiotics -- the only class of drugs that are still effective in killing off gonorrhea bacteria, analysis shows.
Unemo says the development of a fully resistant strain was predictable because gonorrhea has shown a remarkable ability to adapt.
"Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it," said Unemo.
The first class of antibiotics used against gonorrhea were sulfa drugs, called sulfonamides. In the last decade, the bacteria have grown resistant to ciprofloxacin and other drugs in fluoroquinolones class. In recent years, the infection has become less susceptible to cephalosporins.
Just last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the percentage of U.S. gonorrhea cases that are resistant to the two commonly-used cephalosporins --cefixime and ceftriaxone -- is on the rise.
Unemo says it is still too early to assess if H041 has become widespread. But he says the history of resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae suggests it could spread rapidly, unless new drugs and treatments are developed.
Gonorrhea is one of the most common STDs in the world and can cause infertility. It can also increase one's susceptibility for HIV. Untreated, it can become fatal.
Canada saw its rates of gonorrhea drop through the 1980s and 90s, as people changed their sexual practices due to increased awareness of HIV/AIDS, the Public Health Agency of Canada says on its website.
But after reaching an all-time low in 1997, gonorrhea rates began to climb. From 1997 to 2001, there was a 45 per cent increase in the rate of gonorrhea in Canada. The increase has been even more dramatic among men aged 30-39: in this age group, the rate went up 68 per cent from 1997 to 2001.
In 2009, the latest year for which figures are available, there were about 11,000 cases of gonorrhea reported in Canada.
The infection causes no symptoms at all in about 50 per cent of infected women. When symptomatic, it is characterized by a burning sensation when urinating and pus discharge from the genitals.
In women, the infection can cause chronic pelvic pain and ectopic pregnancy. Babies born of infected mothers are at high risk of blindness as well as of developing serious blood and joint infections.
