Health and Wellness Sexual Health Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea Isn't the Future—It's Here In March 2018, a U.K. man had the first-ever global case of gonorrhea that's resistant to both first-choice antibiotic treatments. By Charlotte Hilton Andersen, Charlotte Hilton Andersen Charlotte Hilton Andersen, (she/her) is an award-winning journalist, who has been covering health, fitness, parenting, relationships, and culture for many major outlets, both in print and online, for 16 years. She's the author of two books and also acts as a freelance editor and ghostwriter. She has appeared in television news segments for CBS, FOX, and NBC. Charlotte graduated from Utah State University with an M.S. degree in science information systems and a Master's degree in science education. She teaches fitness classes in her spare time. She and her husband have 5 children and live in Denver. Shape's editorial guidelines Lauren Mazzo, Lauren Mazzo Facebook Instagram Twitter Website Lauren Mazzo has been working as a health and fitness writer and editor since 2015 — including six years at Shape, where she was formerly the senior editor. She's certified as a personal trainer and fitness nutrition specialist through the American Council on Exercise, and is currently working on her health coach certification. In 2015, she graduated from Ithaca College with a B.A. in Journalism and minors in Writing and Honors, and while there, she also studied Sex, Gender, and Desire and The Science and Philosophy of Sex and Love. Prior to Shape, she worked for the digital team at Self Magazine and interned at Marie Claire. Her passion for all things health and fitness began as a teenager, when she first started learning about nutrition and training as a competitive cheerleader. Since then, she's explored a variety of workouts, from weightlifting, running, and cycling to yoga, and continued cheering on the nonprofit team Cheer New York in New York City. While she's currently traveling the world as a nomad, you can catch her learning about the psychology of dating, attempting new adventure sports, and embracing the Blue Zone way of life. Shape's editorial guidelines and Macaela Mackenzie Macaela Mackenzie Instagram Twitter Website Macaela MacKenzie (she/her) is a freelance journalist and author covering women's equality in sports and culture. She is currently working on her first book on equal pay in sports and how women athletes are closing the gender gap. As a former senior editor of Glamour, she oversaw all health and wellness content, covering mental health and self-care, race and gender gaps in medicine, the fertility spectrum, and women's sexual wellness, and wrote four cover stories on Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Billie Jean King, and Simone Biles. Prior to her role at Glamour, Macaela was a freelance journalist with more than 2,000 bylines covering women's wellness for outlets including SELF, Women's Health, Forbes, SHAPE, Marie Claire, Elle, and Allure, among others. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with degrees in journalism, sociology, and psychology. She currently lives in New York. Shape's editorial guidelines Updated on September 27, 2019 Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: Y Photo Studio / Shutterstock . A scary fact: STDs have been on the rise since 2014, despite all the awareness surrounding the importance of safe sex. Modern medicine has made most STDs treatable, but if that STD starts evolving faster than our treatments, then there's trouble. Health officials have been warning us about the threat of "super gonorrhea"—a strain of the sexually transmitted disease that's resistant to all known antibiotics—for a few years now. But the superbug is no longer a future problem. It's right here, right now. In March 2018, a U.K. man reportedly contracted multidrug-resistant super gonorrhea, marking the first-ever global case of an infection with high-level resistance to the standard treatment of the disease, according to Public Health England. The man seemed to have picked up the STD in Southeast Asia earlier in 2018 and started showing symptoms after about a month, according to the report. The first-line (or standard) treatment for gonorrhea is a combination of two antibiotics: azithromycin and ceftriaxone. This particular infection is the first-ever global case of gonorrhea that's showed high-level resistance to both drugs. This isn't the first super-STD scare that's surfaced IRL: In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a cluster of gonorrhea infections that demonstrated both decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone and very high-level resistance to azithromycin. That was the first time this superbug had been found in the U.S. "Our last line of defense against gonorrhea is weakening," said Jonathan Mermin, M.D., director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. "If resistance continues to increase and spread, current treatment will ultimately fail and 800,000 Americans a year will be at risk for untreatable gonorrhea." This is especially concerning as rates of gonorrhea, along with chlamydia, are at "epidemic proportions," with these diseases accounting for the highest number of cases of any infectious disease in the U.S., the CDC said. (And guess what? Chlamydia might soon be antibiotic-resistant too!) The disease is spreading so quickly partly because it shows few if any symptoms at the beginning, so people may give it to partners without even realizing they have it. Another factor is how it spreads. It can be transmitted through all types of sexual contact, so while people may remember to use a condom for "standard" sex, many people don't use protection for other types of sex-which is why people who have the most oral sex, including gay men, women, and anyone under age 29, are at the highest risk and account for the vast majority of gonorrhea cases. Because of super gonorrhea and other complications of STDs, unsafe sex is the number-one risk factor for illness and death in young women worldwide. Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself. Safe sex is an absolute must for everyone, the CDC says. In addition, here are things you can do to protect yourself from the new superbug, and here's how to have safe sex every single time. In the meantime, the CDC added that an experimental oral antibiotic currently in testing is showing promising results. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit