ABSTRACT
EPIDEMIOLOGY/INCIDENCE Worldwide, it is estimated that 62 million new cases of gonorrhea occur annually (1). The highest incidences of gonorrhea and its complications occur in developing countries. As a result of a national gonorrhea control program implemented in the United States in 1970s, the national rate of gonorrheal infection has decreased >75% over the last three decades. The number of cases reported in the United States continues to decrease annually. In 2009, there were 301,174 cases of gonorrhea reported to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) with approximately 40,000 of these infections occurring in pregnant women. The CDC estimated that only about half of all infections are reported (2). The incidence is substantially lower in all countries of western Europe than in the United States, but
high and rising rates have been documented in eastern Europe. Gonorrhea disproportionately affects African-Americans with the reported rate of infection in this population being 19 times greater than that in whites (2,3). The median prevalence of gonorrhea in unselected populations of pregnant women has been estimated to be 10% in Africa, 5% in Latin America, and 4% in Asia (4).
