A record number of people in England were diagnosed with gonorrhoea last year, annual UK Health Security Agency figures show, external.
Diagnoses rose 7.5% – from 79,268 in 2022 to 85,223 in 2023.
Syphilis, meanwhile, rose 9.4% – from 8,693 to 9,513, the highest number since 1948 – with more heterosexual men and women becoming infected.
Both have more than doubled in the past decade.
Overall, sexually transmitted infection diagnoses, including several different STIs, rose 4.7%.
Some of the rise may be due to an 8.3% increase in the number of people having STI screening – 4.6% up on 2019.
The groups with the highest proportion of people diagnosed with an STI were:
The best way to avoid STIs was to use condoms “consistently and correctly” with new or casual sexual partners, the UKSHA said.
