The New Zealand AIDS Foundation is warning what’s been dubbed a ‘gonorrhoea superbug’ is a very real threat to the health of gay men. A patient has been found to have the highest level of drug resistance to the disease ever reported in Australia. The person is reported to be a tourist from central Europe who contracted the disease in Sydney, and has since left. New Zealand sexual health clinics are on high alert in case the new strain spreads here. “This is the second time in two years that a treatment resistant strain has been detected in our part of the world,” says New Zealand AIDS Foundation Executive Director Shaun Robinson. “The last time saw an outbreak of hard to treat gonorrhoea amongst gay men in Auckland and Wellington.” Robinson says gay men are likely to account for 80 per cent of the gonorrhoea cases in New Zealand and anorectal cases have been going up by more than 100 per cent per annum in recent years. “The World Health Organisation has identified untreatable gonorrhoea as a key world risk and if such a strain became an epidemic it would hit gay men the hardest,” he says. “Luckily for New Zealand our high rates of condom use would give us a significant level of protection against untreatable gonorrhoea; but those men who may be relying on sero-sorting or undetectable viral load to protect them against HIV will be extremely vulnerable. “The threat of untreatable gonorrhoea is another very good reason to love your condom.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 26th August 2014 - 1:28pm