Plagues,
Pestilences and Diseases
Deadly dangerous Superbug gonorrhoea found in Japan
* 14:51 15 July 2011 by Andy Coghlan
An untreatable strain of the sexually transmitted disease
gonorrhoea, resistant to all existing antibiotics, has been
identified in Japan.
The news follows warnings last week from the US Centers for
Disease Control that it is only a matter of time before invincible
strainsMovie Camera of Neisseria gonorrhoea emerge in the US.
The Japanese superbug, called H041, was isolated by Magnus Unemo
at the Örebro University Hospital in Sweden, and reported this
week at the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease
Research meeting in Quebec, Canada.
Unemo, who found the bug in strains from Kyoto, says that it could
go global in 10 to 20 years.
The CDC reports that some gonorrhoea strains in the US can now
only be killed with one class of antibiotics – the cephalosporins.
However, the Japanese superbug may yet meet its nemesis. David
Livermore, director of antibiotic resistance monitoring at the
UK's Health Protection Agency says that two lesser-known
antibiotics, ertapenem and spectinomycin, are the most likely to
have activity against it.
But Livermore says the emergence of the resistant strain is
disturbing. "It's the first with high-level resistance, so while
we've been seeing erosion for several years, this is the breach of
the dam." The discovery adds weight to advice for people with new
or casual sexual partners to wear condoms, Livermore says.