Sexually transmitted diseases: extract from the annual report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health and Social Security for the year 1982.

Since the incidence of the sexually transmitted diseases (STD) started to rise 25 years ago there has been a steady increase in the numbers of new cases reported from the clinics. This increase reached a peak in 1980 when over 500 000 new cases were registered in the United Kingdom as a whole. The number of cases registered in England in the same year was 458 979 (469 140 in England and Wales). In 1981 the figures for England were 479 924 (England and Wales 491 014). The figures from the annual returns for individual clinics in England show that 50% of all the new cases were seen in clinics in the four Thames regions. This fact has important implications for short and long term planning. The increase in the number of new cases attending the clinics over the past quarter of a century has been due to the more recently recognised sexually transmissible agents such as Chlamydia trachomatis, Ureaplasma urealyticum, Gardnerella vaginalis,