European Tourist Caught In Australia ["super Gonococcus"]

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 23:16

European tourist caught in Australia ["super gonococcus"]

In Australia, a strain of the causative agent of gonorrhea with the highest level of antibiotic resistance has been identified so far. "Supergonococcus" was isolated from a Central European tourist who reportedly contracted the infection while in Sydney and was treated at a hospital in one of Australia's tourist centers, Cairns in northeastern Queensland.

Gonococcus under an electron microscope. Photo from the site textbookofbacteriology.net /

In Australia, the strain of the causative agent of gonorrhea with the highest level of antibiotic resistance of all known so far has been identified, writes The Guardian.

"Supergonococcus" was isolated from a Central European tourist who reportedly contracted the infection while in Sydney and was treated at a hospital in one of Australia's tourist centers, Cairns in northeastern Queensland. A bacterium isolated from a man is completely resistant to all antimicrobial drugs created over the past 70 years. Currently, the tourist has already left Australia and returned to his homeland.

The causative agent of gonorrhea, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which successfully responded to penicillin at the dawn of the antibiotic era, has in recent years acquired resistance to tetracycline, azithromycin and third-generation cephalosporins, usually prescribed as a "last resort" remedy. The first nearly incurable strain of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, labeled H041, was isolated from the throat of a Japanese prostitute in 2009. This strain was found to be 4-8 times more resistant to ceftriaxone than any other type of microbe.

As predicted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the continued spread of antibiotic-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae will lead to hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from chronic pelvic inflammatory disease leading to infertility in the next decade. In July 2013, the agency proposed two new regimens for combined antibiotic therapy for gonorrhea, designed to overcome the resistance of its pathogen.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one hundred million people are infected with gonorrhea every year in the world.