Prostitutes in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia are fueling the rise in of “super gonorrhoea”, British health experts have warned.
It comes after a news outlets in the UK reported on the case of a British man who experts say is the first person in the world to catch a strain of gonorrhoea that is resistant to almost all forms of treatment and medication.
Antibiotics normally used to treat the sexually transmitted disease are powerless to stop the new super strain, health experts have warned.
The unnamed British man, which the BBC said had caught the "worst-ever" case of super-gonorrhoea after a sexual encounter with a woman in Southeast Asia has a partner in the UK.
He discovered he had the super strain of the STI after getting tested one month after he returned to the UK.
Dr Gwenda Hughes from Public Health England said: “This is the first time a case has displayed such high-level resistance to both of these drugs, and to most other commonly used antibiotics."
According to Professor Johnjoe McFadden, a molecular geneticist at Surrey University, prostitution in countries such as Thailand, which are popular with British tourists, could be fuelling the rise in the ‘super’ STIs which are resistant to antibiotics.
Speaking to Mail Online, Professor McFadden said:
“Anyone who has frequent sex is more likely to have gonorrhoea, and the more frequent the more likely they are to pick up a resistant strain.”
While he refused to blame the sex industry in Southeast Asia outright, he said: “Obviously people who have sex most often in this part of the world are prostitutes.”
Meanwhile, Professor Matthew Baylis from Liverpool University said that it was unlikely the British man was the only person in the world to be infected with the super gonorrhoea and suggested there may be “some people in south east Asia, perhaps, with this strain of gonorrhoea”.
He added that if large numbers of people in Southeast Asia are found to have the same strain of gonorrhoea then it could take us back “to a time before Alexander Fleming and antibiotics were discovered, where it was an untreatable STI”.
Experts are urging people to make sure they use protection which can help to prevent the spread of an STI.
