A woman died in Anchorage from an untreated case of gonorrhea this spring, as state health officials urge Alaskans to seek testing amid high rates of the sexually transmitted infection.
The case was publicly reported in a state epidemiology bulletin posted Monday. According to the bulletin, the woman was in her 50s when she arrived at a local emergency room suffering from respiratory distress. She was initially diagnosed with septic shock and heart failure. Further testing revealed that she had a disseminated gonococcal infection, or DGI. She later died, according to the bulletin.
Health officials say the infection is what killed her. It’s a severe complication that can arise when gonorrhea is left untreated and spreads through the body. According to the bulletin, the woman had gone to the doctor twice in the six months before her death, both times related to opioid use disorder. There were no records of her being tested for gonorrhea in the past year.
It’s rare to die from untreated gonorrhea. Dr. Liz Ohlsen, a staff physician with the state Division of Public Health, said the woman’s death appears to be the state’s first from the infection for some time, although not all cases are reported to the division.
“I don't know of another case recently,” Ohlsen said.
A nationwide study spanning from 2020 to 2022 found that an estimated 0.5% to 3% of untreated gonorrhea infections escalate to DGI. Among 274 DGI cases reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during that time period, just 2.2% of patients died.
Alaska notoriously has high rates of sexually transmitted infections, including gonorrhea. It had the nation’s highest rate of gonorrhea in 2023, the last year with data available from the CDC.
In a March bulletin, the state warned of a sharp rise in statewide DGI cases last year, initially seen in Anchorage emergency rooms. Reported infections more than tripled, from eight in 2023 to 27 in 2024, with more than two-thirds of last year’s patients living in Anchorage.
Alaska has seen eight DGI cases from January through May of this year, according to Monday’s bulletin. All of them were in Anchorage.
“What we're seeing is that there's not just one group of people who's at risk,” Ohlsen said. “Instead, it's more sexually active people who have multiple partners, or whose partner has multiple partners.”
A major factor in untreated gonorrhea cases, Ohlsen said, is the fact that people can carry the disease without being visibly affected by it.
“Gonorrhea can frequently cause no symptoms, and there's a strain that hasn't previously been seen much in the United States associated with some of these cases that may be less likely to cause symptoms,” she said.
Health officials don’t regularly identify gonorrhea strains in individual cases, Ohlsen said, which means the new strain’s prevalence is unknown. She encouraged Alaskans to get regularly tested for gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted infections, noting that gonorrhea is curable.
“This is something that can be treated in a public health clinic or a doctor's office,” she said. “And the important thing is to just test people who are sexually active for gonorrhea, and treat it if we find it.”
The Anchorage Health Department offers testing for sexually transmitted infections at its 825 L St. clinic from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. most weekdays, with shorter hours from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday. The clinic has now discontinued express testing previously offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
