UK doctors are being told the antibiotic normally used to treat gonorrhoea is no longer effective because the sexually transmitted disease is now largely resistant to it.
The Health Protection Agency says we may be heading to a point when the disease is incurable unless new treatments can be found.
For now, doctors must stop using the usual treatment cefixime and instead use two more powerful antibiotics.

One of the complication of gonorrhea is systemic dissemination resulting in skin pustules or petechia, septic arthritis, meningitis or endocarditis.[3] This occurs in between 0.6 and 3.0% of women and 0.4 and 0.7% of men.[3] In men, inflammation of the epididymis (epididymitis); prostate gland (prostatitis) and urethral stricture (urethritis) can result from untreated gonorrhea.[17] In women, the most common result of untreated gonorrhea is pelvic inflammatory disease. Other complications include perihepatitis,[17] a rare complication associated with Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome; septic arthritis in the fingers, wrists, toes, and ankles; septic abortion; chorioamnionitis during pregnancy; neonatal or adult blindness from conjunctivitis; and infertility. Neonates coming through the birth canal are given erythromycin ointment in the eyes to prevent blindness from infection. The underlying gonorrhea should be treated; if this is done then usually a good prognosis will follow. Among persons in the United States between 14 and 39 years of age, 46% of people with gonorrheal infection also have chlamydial infection