Epidemiological aspects of gonococcal infections.

The advent of penicillin therapy raised high hopes, after the Second World War, that gonorrhoea would quickly become relegated to the rank of those diseases which can be kept permanently under control. This early promise has not been fulfilled and now, fifteen years later, reports from various parts of the world show that gonorrhoea has held its own-and in some countries has even increased substantially. This article discusses some epidemiological features of gonococcal infections, and analyses the reasons why gonorrhoea, unlike syphilis, still presents so many problems of diagnosis, cure and control.