Dame Sally Davies has written to all GPs and pharmacies to ensure they are prescribing the correct drugs after the rise of a highly drug-resistant strain of the infection.
The warning comes after a new strain that dubbed ‘super-gonorrhea’ has surfaced, which is resistant to the antibiotic treatments usually given to patients with the disease.
“Gonorrhoea is at risk of becoming an untreatable disease due to the continuing emergence of antimicrobial resistance,” Davies writes.
At least 16 cases of “super-gonorrhoea” have been detected by Public Health England (PHE) since March, the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) reported in September.
The outbreak began in Leeds, with other cases having been reported in Oldham, Macclesfield and Scunthorpe. Some patients reported having sexual partners from other areas of England.
All cases to date have been transmitted through heterosexual intercourse.
Usually, gonorrhea can be treated by taking two different antibiotics simultaneously: ceftriaxone and azithromycin. The new strain is resistant to the azithromycin component of the treatment and is therefore currently untreatable.
Consequently, BASHH warned that some online pharmacies were offering only oral medication.
If patients are only prescribed one antibiotic rather than the necessary two treatments, hey will not get better and the disease could develop a resistance to the antibiotic the patient was taking.