Reported incidence of gonorrhoea and syphilis in East and West Germany 1990-2000 – effects of reunification and behaviour change

Numbers of cases of gonorrhoea and, to a lesser extent, of syphilis in Germany may have been drastically underreported in the past, according to a report in Germany’s national surveillance bulletin (1). It is hoped that a new notification system for syphilis, introduced on 1 January 2001, and a sentinel surveillance system for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) soon to be implemented will provide better quality data to estimate the incidence of STIs and find out whether they reflect the situation in other European countries (2-7).