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Review
. 2022 Feb;27(8):2100197.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.8.2100197.

Surveillance and epidemiology of syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia in the non-European Union countries of the World Health Organization European Region, 2015 to 2020

Jelena Barbaric  1 , Giorgi Kuchukhidze  2 , Nicole Seguy  2 , Elena Vovc  2 , Maria Josefina Theresa Babovic  3 , Teodora Elvira Wi  3 , Daniel Low-Beer  3 , Ivana Bozicevic  1
Affiliations
Review

Surveillance and epidemiology of syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia in the non-European Union countries of the World Health Organization European Region, 2015 to 2020

Jelena Barbaric et al. Euro Surveill. 2022 Feb.

Abstract

BackgroundEpidemics of sexually transmitted infections (STI) are a major public health challenge in the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region.AimWe aimed to provide an overview of case reporting and other surveillance data for syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia for the non-European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) countries of the Centre and East part of the WHO European Region as per classification used by the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.MethodsData were provided by the surveillance agencies of the Member States for the period 2015 to 2019 through the WHO/Europe Communicable Diseases Annual Reporting Form. We analysed reported cases, explored data reported to the WHO Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (GASP) and performed a review of publications on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in gonorrhoea in the period 2015 to 2020 using systematic methodology.ResultsFrom 2015 to 2019, in most of the countries with three or more data points, there was a pattern of decrease in reported syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia cases, which is in contrast to the EU/EEA. The number of reported cases per 100,000 population was 0.4-26.5 for syphilis, 0-18.5 for gonorrhoea and 0-43.3 for chlamydia. Four countries reported recent data on AMR in gonorrhoea to GASP, and we identified further publications from Georgia, Russia and Ukraine.ConclusionWe found wide heterogeneity in reported rates of STI. There is a strong need to improve availability and quality of STI surveillance data in the non-EU/EEA countries.

Keywords: Europe; antimicrobial resistance; chlamydia; gonorrhoea; sexually transmitted infections; surveillance; syphilis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure
Figure
Male-to-female ratio in reported cases of syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia, 11 WHO European Region countries, most recent year with available data in the 2015–2019 period
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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