Gonorrhoea is now the second most commong STI in Europe and is fast becoming resistant to drugs, warn scientists.
Sex on Female First
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the agency that monitors the spread of infectious diseas, there were more than 32,000 gonorrhoea cases in Europe during 2010.
The disease numbers come in second most common in Europe behidn Chlamydia.
Strains of the Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) have become more resistant to common treatments and are showing reduced susceptibility to newer antibiotics.
The infection is usually treated with the druc cefixime but an increasing number of patients have shown resistance to the antibiotic.
The proportion of cases with resistance rose from 4 per cent in 2009 to 9 per cent in 2010.
The drug-resistant strains are spreading fast around Europe. They were found in 17 European Countries, seven more than the previous year.
"This indicated the risk that gonorrhoea may become an untreatable disease in the future," explains Marc Spenger, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
"Public health experts and clinicians need to be aware of the current critical situation and should be vigilant for treatment failures."
The Health Protection Agency has already warned about the spread of gonorrhoea in England among young people.
There were more than 20,000 cases in England in 2011, a 25 per cent rise on the previous year.