An alarming new superbug may be on its way an incurable form of gonorrhea. The disease, once easily killed with a shot of penicillin, is increasingly becoming drug-resistant. Soon, the world may face a version that cant be killed by any known antibiotic, warned Catherine Ison, the director of the sexually transmitted bacteria reference library with the United Kingdoms Health Protection Agency.

In recent years, as the disease has evolved, medications once proven to kill the bacteria have become less effective except one, a class of antibiotics called cephalosporins. Now some strains of gonorrhea are showing signs of being resistant to even that, Ison told those at a scientific meeting last week in Edinburgh, Scotland.

"If this problem isn't addressed, there's a very real possibility that gonorrhea will become a very difficult infection to treat," she said.  Gonorrhea is the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the United States. In 2008, there were 336,742 official cases, but this number, the most recent available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, may vastly underestimate the true number.