First Documented: 1885

Illness Caused: Gonorrhoea

Antibiotic Resistance: Medium

Virulence: Worrying

Gonorrhoea is spread through sexual contact and causes various infections in both men and women. Certain strains of the bacteria have shown resistance to antibiotics and have mutated over the course of 50 years or so, slowly adapting different resistances as doctors change their approach by using different antibiotics to counter the disease. The small hairs or ‘pili’ on the bacteria act like hooks that are used to move the cell and attach it to other healthy cells. Using the pili the cell can exert a force 100,000 times its weight!