ALERT: Oral sex ‘producing untreatable gonorrhoea’

According to the World Health Organisation, oral sex is producing gonorrhoea that is difficult to treat.

WHO says gonorrhoea has become very hard, and sometimes, impossible to treat, owing to its new resistance to treatment.

Teodora Wi, speaking on behalf of WHO, said in Japan, France and Spain, three cases were discovered where the infection could not be treated.

“Gonorrhoea is a very smart bug, every time you introduce a new class of antibiotics to treat gonorrhoea, the bug becomes resistant,” Wi said.

“These cases may just be the tip of the iceberg.”

Health officials, Wi says, are more worried about the threat of gonorrhoea on the throat because antibiotics could lead to treatment-resistant bacteria in the back of the throat.

“When you use antibiotics to treat infections like a normal sore throat, this mixes with the Neisseria species in your throat and this results in resistance.”

“In the US, resistance [to an antibiotic] came from men having sex with men because of pharyngeal infection,” she said.

The global health body warned that based on recent data analysed from 77 countries, gonorrhoea’s resistance to antibiotics was widespread.

WHO also warned that most gonorrhoea infections are found in developing countries where it is more difficult to detect resistance.