CDC Grand Rounds: the growing threat of multidrug-resistant gonorrhea.

Although gonorrhea has afflicted humans for centuries, and the causative bacterium, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, was identified more than a century ago, gonorrhea remains a public health problem in the United States. Gonorrhea is the second most commonly reported notifiable infection in the United States; >300,000 cases were reported in 2011. In the United States, health inequities persist; the incidence of reported gonorrhea among blacks is 17 times the rate among whites, likely because of structural socioeconomic factors.