WHO experts warn....Gonorrhoea becoming 'untreatable',

It is only a matter of time before last-resort antibiotics will be powerless to halt the spread of gonorrhoea, experts have warned.

The sexually-transmitted infection affects an estimated 78 million people each year and disproportionately affects women, leading to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility, as well as increasing the risk of HIV.

At least three people - in France, Japan and Spain - are infected with an untreatable strain of the disease, which they may have spread to others through sex, the World Health Organisation has said.

Teodora Wi, a human reproduction specialist at the Geneva-based UN health agency, said: "Gonorrhoea is a very smart bug.

"Every time you introduce a new type of antibiotic to treat it, this bug develops resistance to it."

Talking of the three cases, she added: "These cases may just be the tip of the iceberg, since systems to diagnose and report untreatable infections are lacking in lower-income countries where gonorrhoea is actually more common."

A WHO study found that from 2009 to 2014 there was widespread resistance to the first-line medicine ciprofloxacin, increasing resistance to another antibiotic drugs called azithromycin, and the emergence of resistance to last-resort treatments known as extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ESCs).

In most countries, ESCs are now the only single antibiotics still effective against gonorrhoea, but resistance to them has already been reported in 50 countries.