Scientists hail first new antibiotic for gonorrhoea in decades amid rise in 'super strains'

14 April 2025, 16:03

Scientists have found the first new antibiotic treatment for the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea since the 1990s.

Experts discovered that gepotidacin, an antibiotic currently used to treat urinary tract infections, can also treat gonorrhoea.

It comes as experts warned that cases of gonorrhoea infections that are resistant to antibiotics are on the rise in England.

Read More: Rise in mutant 'super gonorrhoea' cases in England, as health chiefs urge Brits to stay safe

The UK Health Security Agency said in March that if the problem is not tackled, increased resistance could one day make the sexually transmitted infection (STI) "untreatable".

But a new study suggests that gepotidacin - which is taken as a pill - may help treat cases and could potentially help to alleviate the threat of treatment-resistant gonorrhoea infections.

A new study, published in The Lancet and presented at the ESCMID conference, saw experts compare gepotidacin with the current standard treatment for "uncomplicated" gonorrhoea in 628 patients.

They found that the new pill is as effective as ceftriaxone with azithromycin for treating the infection.

It was also found to be able to treat strains of the infection that were resistant to current first-line treatments.

The authors said that "gepotidacin demonstrated non-inferiority to ceftriaxone plus azithromycin" which offers a "novel oral treatment option for uncomplicated urogenital gonorrhoea".

"Gepotidacin is a novel oral antibacterial treatment with the potential to become an alternative option for the treatment of gonococcal infections," they wrote.

Gonorrhoea can usually be treated effectively, although some cases can be resistant to the antibiotic ceftriaxone, which is the first line of treatment.

This means the bacteria that causes the infection has developed the ability to survive and multiply even when exposed to the antibiotic.

Some cases are also classed as "extensively drug resistant" - or XDR - meaning the infection did not respond to ceftriaxone or the second line of treatment.

Figures from the UKHSA show that in the 15 months from January 2024 to March 2025, there were 17 cases of ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhoea.

Thirteen were reported in 2024, with four cases in 2025 so far.

This is compared to 16 cases across 2022 and 2023.

In the same period, there were nine XDR cases reported - six in 2024 and three in 2025 so far.

This is compared to five cases between 2022 and 2023.

Ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhoea was first detected in England in 2015 and 42 cases have since been reported.

The UKHSA said that there were about 54,965 gonorrhoea diagnoses at sexual health services in the first nine months of 2024 compared to more than 85,000 in the whole of 2023.