Analysis of the sex ratio of reported gonorrhoea incidence in Shenzhen, China

Xiong, Mingzhou; Lan, Lina; Feng, Tiejian; Zhao, Guanglu; Wang, Feng; Hong, Fuchang; Wu, Xiaobing; Zhang, Chunlai; Wen, Lizhang; Liu, Aizhong; Best, John McCulloch; Tang, Weiming

Some changes need to be made to get a more accurate reported gonorrhoea incidence. First, the way of disease surveillance needs to be improved. Active surveillance is significantly superior on data accuracy than passive surveillance. CISDCP is a passive surveillance system with all data reported by hospitals. The gonorrhoea cases might be under-reported by physicians both in the diagnostic and reporting process. Some active surveillance methods, such as sentinel surveillance and special survey, can avoid the bias due to the underreporting of new cases. Second, it is of great importance to update the diagnostic criteria for gonorrhoea. Gram stain microscopic smear examination and NG-isolated culture methods both have flaws as aforementioned. NAATs has not become the recommendatory method for Table 2 The gender difference of untested rate, true-positive rate and false-negative rate gonorrhoea in the current diagnostic criteria. We suggest that the diagnostic criteria should be updated to recommend NAATs as the standard method for gonorrhoea diagnosis. Furthermore, physicians should perform regularly NG screening tests for potential patients, particularly for female patients who are often asymptomatic.