A SENIOR North-East doctor has urged people to use condoms amid signs that a sexually transmitted disease is becoming resistant to drugs.

The safe sex warning from Dr Abayomi Opaneye, consultant in genito-urinary medicine at James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, follows new evidence that gonorrhoea is becoming increasingly difficult to treat.

Resistance to the long-established antibiotic Ciprofloxacin has become so prevalent in the North-East that Dr Opaneye has had to switch patients to the new antibiotic Cefixime to ensure successful treatment.

He warned those who continued to ignore advice about using condoms that there was no guarantee there would always be new drugs available.

Dr Opaneye said: "This is a nationwide problem because the organism that causes gonorrhoea has the ability to mutate and become resistant to drugs. The percentage of cases where the old antibiotics have not worked has been rising.

"In the past six months, we have changed to a different antiobiotic, Cefixime.

"If it develops resistance to this drug, we will switch again because we still have a few other options but it is true that the options are running out."

Gonorrhoea can cause infertility in women as well as abdominal pain and discomfort when passing water.

In men, it can also produce pain while passing water, an unpleasant discharge and, sometimes, fever and chills.

Vivien Holyoak, director of the Health Protection Agency North-East, confirmed that drug-resistant strains of gonorroea had been detected in the region.

She said this was a nationwide problem, adding: "We keep genito-urinary consultants informed about changes in drug resistance in their areas.

"What the consultants do in their clinics is prescribe on the basis of local knowledge. They will give patients the antibiotic that is most likely to fight the local organisms."

She said scientists were in a race against time to develop new antibiotics before diseases became resistant but there were still treatment options available.

Dr Holyoak said the public had to play its part, adding: "People have forgotten the safe sex message about condoms and they need to remember it."

Dr Opaneye said: "The problem is people's attitudes."