Scientists have revealed a reason to protect yourself when engaging in some intimate holiday fun with a report that a man contracted “super gonorrhea” on an international holiday.
An Austrian man reportedly caught a new drug-resistant strain of the sexually transmitted disease after having relations with a sex worker in Cambodia.
According to the World Health Organization, ”super gonorrhea” refers to a strain that has a high level of resistance to currently recommended treatments.
If multidrug-resistant strains of gonorrhea start to spread, many cases of the STD might become untreatable.
A report published last week in Eurosurveillance warned that the new strain could pose a “major global public health threat,” according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
“If such strains manage to establish a sustained transmission, many gonorrhea cases might become untreatable,” the report read.
The report detailed that the man in his 50s had unprotected sex with a female sex worker in Cambodia in April 2022 and, five days later, he experienced pain while urinating and witnessed a discharge coming out of his penis.
He was given antibiotics, which resolved the symptoms, but more testing still showed a positive result, so he was further treated with an antibiotic containing penicillin called co-amoxiclav.
According to the Mayo Clinic, if left untreated, gonorrhea can cause infertility in both women and men, can increase the risk of HIV/AIDS or could spread to the joints and other areas of the body.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gonorrhea is one of the most commonly reported sexually transmitted infections in the United States.
The CDC estimates one in five people in the US has a sexually transmitted infection.
