Gonorrhea was diagnosed in a record number of patients in England last year, according to the UK Health Protection Agency. The number of diagnosed cases rose by 7.5%, from 79,268 in 2022 to 85,223 in 2023, the BBC reports.Meanwhile, syphilis cases rose 9.4% from 8,693 to 9,513, the highest number since 1948, with heterosexual men and women infected. The number of syphilis cases has more than doubled in the past decade. Overall, diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections, including several different sexually transmitted infections (STIs), increased by 4.7%.Part of this increase can be attributed to an 8.3% increase in the number of people being screened for STIs, up 4.6% from 2019.The groups with the highest proportion of people diagnosed with STIs include: men aged 15-24 who have sex with men, black Caribbean men.Of the 401,800 new STI cases reported last year, 194,970, almost half, were chlamydia-related.However, the number of chlamydia cases remained stable compared to 2022 and decreased compared to 2014.
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