Gonorrhoea in Manchester; incidence of repeated infections.

The incidence of gonorrhoea as shown by the annual returns of the Ministry of Health has not shown the fall which could reasonably be expected. It is difficult to explain this satisfactorily, since the treatment of the disease is simple and effective. The simplicity and efficiency of treatment may in some ways have contributed to this continued high incidence by allowing re-infection to occur in a comparatively short time. Before the introduction of chemotherapy and the antibiotics, an individual infected with gonorrhoea spent a considerable time under treatment and had therefore little chance of becoming re-infected within a short space of time. Nowadays, in the vast majority of cases, effective treatment takes only a few minutes, the blood level of the antibiotic falls after a few days, and re-infection may then occur. This process may be continued so that, in any one year, one individual "repeater" may account for a number of infections. Another factor which has undoubtedly been operating since the war years has been the change in population, especially in the large towns. Disturbances in other countries and full employment in Great Britain have attracted large numbers of immigrants from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and because of social difficulties these people have contributed to the incidence of venereal disease. It is estimated that greater Manchester has a population of 2,400,000 (Laird, 1957); no accurate figures are available of the number of foreign nationals, but it has been suggested that