Leeds Is Being Struck Down With Drug Resistant 'Super-Gonorrhea'

And you thought the biggest threat to your health in Yorkshire was this 5,000 calorie behemoth…

News reaches us that a drug resistant strain of gonorrhoea is spreading to the north of England, with the outbreak centred in Leeds, where 12 cases have been confirmed and look set to rise.

Enough to trigger a national alert between sexual health agencies, the outbreak has also seen a further four cases reported in Macclesfield, Oldham and Scunthorpe - though the figures look doubly damning for Leeds, a city in which there are likely to be even more cases so far undiagnosed.

So why is this breed of gonorrhoea so fierce? 

This is down to the fact it’s able to shrug off the antibiotic azithromycin, normally used alongside another drug, ceftriaxone, to clear the conditions from unlucky sufferers.

It’s a mini-pandemic all right, and speaking for the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, Dr Jan Clarke told the BBC: "It was sufficiently serious to alert our whole national chain of clinics that there is the possibility that we've got a very resistant strain of gonorrhoea."

He added, "We are really skating on thin ice as far as treating gonorrhoea is concerned at the moment."

The infection is spread by unprotected vaginal, oral and anal sex, with one in 10 heterosexual men, three quarters of women, and men who have sex with men, all displaying no easily recognisable symptoms.

Look away now if you’re eating or don’t fancy being repulsed: symptoms include a thick green or yellow discharge from sexual organs, pain when urinating and bleeding between periods.

We may jest slightly, but this is a deadly serious issue. Gonorrhoea is the second most common sexually transmitted infection in the UK, and if untreated it can lead to infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease and can be passed on to a child during pregnancy.

Sobering stuff. You’ve been warned.

[Via: BBC News]