Oral sex is to blame for dangerous ‘super gonorrhoea’ that could be incurable

Oral sex is to blame for dangerous forms of untreatable gonorrhoea - and a lack of condom use is helping it spread, experts have warned.

Antibiotic resistant strains of the sexually transmitted infection (STI) are becoming much harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat, the World Health Organisation warns.

Dr Teodora Wi, medical officer in human reproduction at WHO, said: "The bacteria that cause gonorrhoea are particularly smart.

"Every time we use a new class of antibiotics to treat the infection, the bacteria evolve to resist them."

Figures from 77 countries shows the infection is becoming resistant to older and cheaper antibiotics.

And some countries, especially where incomes are high and STI tests are common, are finding cases that cannot be treated using all known antibiotics.

But worryingly, the vast majority of cases are in poorer countries where resistance is harder to detect.

Dr Wi added: "These cases may just be the tip of the iceberg, since systems to diagnose and report untreatable infections are lacking in lower-income countries where gonorrhoea is actually more common."

About 78 million people are infected with gonorrhoea each year, according to WHO.

It is the second most common form of STI in England.

It affects the genitals, rectum and throat, producing a thick green or yellow discharge from the vagina or penis.

Bacteria can be spread from the genitals through unprotected sex and from the throat through oral sex.

Dr Wi told the BBC: "When you use antibiotics to treat infections like a normal sore throat, this mixes with the Neisseria species [gonorrhoea bacteria] in your throat and this results in resistance."

Putting gonorrhoea bacteria into that environment through oral sex could lead to the spread of a super-gonorrhoea.

One in ten men and almost half of infected women will not experience any symptoms.

It can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility and an increased risk of HIV.

Between 2009 and 2014 97 per cent of countries under WHO's gonorrhoea surveillance programme found drug-resistant strains of the infection.

But there are just three new candidate drugs that could be used to curb the spread of the STI.

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