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Sex

A Drug-Resistant 'Super Gonorrhea' Is Spreading Through the North of England

If your junk's looking a bit gross and you've been hanging out in the UK, go to a doctor.

Photo by Miki Yoshihito via Flickr

Read: How to Have One-Night Stands in Your Twenties

A countrywide alert has been triggered following an outbreak of drug-resistant gonorrhea in the north of England. The Guardian reports that the super-strain was first detected in Leeds in March, with all of the cases involving heterosexual patients. So far, 15 cases have been identified, including patients from Macclesfield, Oldham, and Scunthorpe.

Peter Greenhouse, a consultant in sexual heath, warns: "It doesn't sound like an awful lot of people, but the implication is there's a lot more of this strain out there and we need to stamp it out as quickly as possible. If this becomes the predominant strain in the UK we're in big trouble, so we have to be really meticulous in making sure each of these individuals has all their contacts traced and treated."

Public Health England is taking the threat very seriously. The association said, "An outbreak control team meeting has been convened and STBRU is currently performing next generation sequencing on these strains to better understand the molecular epidemiology."

So, basically, if your junk's looking a bit gross and you've been hanging out in the UK, go to a doctor. And be sure to make those very awkward phone calls to recent sexual partners, because it's a massive dick move not to. And, from then on, just make sure you wrap it up—it really is that easy to avoid inflamed genitalia.