What is different about this new strain?
Testing of the new H041 strain has revealed that it is resistant to ceftriaxone, one of the three preferred antibiotic treatments. Analysis at the Swedish Reference library for Pathogenic Neisseria also found it to be resistant to all other types of cephalosporins (a class of antibiotic that includes Cefixime), as well as the majority of 30 antimicrobials tested. The researchers were able to show that the new bacteria strain possessed a new gene variant that enabled it to be resistant to cephalosporins.
There have been no reported cases of this strain of gonorrhoea in the UK, but the Health Protection Agency has an ongoing surveillance programme to detect cases of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea should they arise in the UK. This surveillance programme regularly examines samples from a number of genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinics to monitor how well the samples from attendees respond to different antibiotics.