Gonorrhea

2023

The number of gonorrhea patients in Britain has tripled to 85 thousand people

In Britain, the number of gonorrhea patients is growing rapidly. In the period from 2012 to 2023, their number increased by about three times, reaching 85 thousand people. This is stated in the materials of the National Health Service of the country (NHS), published on May 21, 2025.

Gonorrhea is a preventable and treatable sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Gonorrhea's antimicrobial resistance is growing rapidly and there are fewer treatment options, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Most cases of gonorrhea can be prevented by regular and proper use of condoms. In the absence of therapy, the infection can cause serious health problems, including infertility and severe neonatal eye infections. Such complications result in significant financial costs for both individuals and health systems.

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Фото: Freepik

Gonorrhea is the second most common sexually transmitted infection in Britain, the NHS notes. With the aim of reducing the spread of the disease, the NHS plans to launch the world's first gonorrhea vaccination programme. For this, the drug 4CMenB will be used to prevent type B meningitis, which reduces the risk of gonorrhea infection by 40%. From August 2025, patients from risk groups will begin to receive the vaccine. They will also be offered vaccination against monkey smallpox, hepatitis A and B and human papillomavirus (HPV).

According to estimates by Imperial College London, the vaccination program can prevent up to 100,000 cases of gonorrhea and save the National Health Service more than £7.9 million (approximately $10.7 million at the rate of May 27, 2025) within ten years.^[1]

Highly drug-resistant gonorrhea strain first found in US

In the US, a strain of [1] gonorrhea with high drug resistance was first detected, raising concerns among public health officials about a shortage of treatments and the future when gonorrhea may become untreatable.

Gonorrhea is the second most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. after chlamydia, and its incidence has skyrocketed in recent years, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported in January 2023.

"There's nothing we threw into gonorrhea that it doesn't develop resistance to," says Supriya Mehta, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "The speed of its evolution exceeds the speed of developing new drugs."

Antibiotic resistance of bacteria and fungi is a global public health challenge. Multidrug-resistant pathogens, or "superbags," could kill more than 10 million people annually by 2050 unless new antibiotics are developed, the WHO said.

2022: WHO: Over the year, 8 million people have been infected with syphilis and gonorrhea in the world, 230 thousand have died

The incidence of sexually transmitted infections is growing in the world. Every day syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and trichomoniasis cause more than 1 million cases of infection. This is stated in the report of the World Health Organization, published on May 21, 2024. Read more here.

1948: US scientists deliberately infect syphilis and gonorrhea of Guatemalan citizens

In 2010, the president USA Barack Obama deeply apologized over the phone Guatemala syphilis to the president for the fact that in the 1940s, American scientists deliberately infected Guatemalan prisoners, mentally ill and military personnel with gonorrhea in order to study ways to treat sexually transmitted diseases with penicillin. As a result, about one and a half thousand people were injured - including prostitutes used in the experiment (and not knowing about it).

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