The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency shows that diagnoses of gonorrhoea and syphilis have surged in the last year. Shockingly, gonorrhoea rates are the highest they have been since records began in 1918.
Gonorrhoea has increased from 71,133 diagnoses per year before the pandemic to 82,592 in 2022. It’s now the second most commonly diagnosed STI behind chlamydia. In people aged 15-24, rates of gonorrhoea almost doubled in 2021 compared to the year before. Syphilis, which in the early 2000s was almost non-existent in the UK, has increased to 8,692 diagnoses in 2022.
