An untreatable strain of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea, resistant to all existing antibiotics, has been identified in Japan.

The news follows warnings last week from the US Centers for Disease Control that it is only a matter of time before invincible strains of Neisseria gonorrhoea emerge in the US.

The Japanese superbug, called H041, was isolated by Magnus Unemo at the Örebro University Hospital in Sweden, and reported this week at the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research meeting in Quebec, Canada.

Unemo, who found the bug in strains from Kyoto, says that it could go global in 10 to 20 years.


The CDC reports that some gonorrhoea strains in the US can now only be killed with one class of antibiotics – the cephalosporins.

However, the Japanese superbug may yet meet its nemesis. David Livermore, director of antibiotic resistance monitoring at the UK’s Health Protection Agency says that two lesser-known antibiotics, ertapenem and spectinomycin, are the most likely to have activity against it.

But Livermore says the emergence of the resistant strain is disturbing. “It’s the first with high-level resistance, so while we’ve been seeing erosion for several years, this is the breach of the dam.” The discovery adds weight to advice for people with new or casual sexual partners to wear condoms, Livermore says.