The overall numbers of newly diagnosed STI’s has been relatively stable over the past few years ² but some of are showing signs of growth.

In 2018 there was over 447,000 new diagnoses of STI’s – a 5% year on year growth⁵ driven by :

• Gonorrhoea + 26%
• Chlamydia + 6%
• Syphilis +5%
• 1st episode of genital herpes +3%

Likely contributions to these increases are

1. Changes in behaviour to sex, including not using condoms with new or casual partners,
2. Improved awareness, with the introduction of national screening for certain STIs e,g, National Chlamydia Screening Programme⁶

In addition to these increases, another major concern, we are also seeing increases in antimicrobial resistant with infections and in 2018 the first case of gonorrhoea, resistant to all antimicrobials was identified.⁴

Raising awareness of the importance of prevention is a key message to share.