A report on patients who were suspected gonorrhea and refereed to the clinical laboratories of Mashhad

Introduction: Gonorrhea is a worldwide sexually transmitted disease, which is caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Since there are no adequate laboratory reports about the frequency of this disease, we decided to estimate the infected male known to have gonorrhea and its frequency in different age groups in Mashhad (Iran). Material and Methods: 13 84 urethral discharge samples were collected between 2003 and 2004. Two swabs were taken for sampling from urethral discharge. One swab was used for obtaining smears for gram and methylenblue staining and the second one was used for culture on Thayer-Martin agar medium. Colony morphology, gram staining, oxidase and catalase tests, and sugar fermentation test confirmed the identity of the organism. Results: From 1348 samples, 80 were diagnosed positive using direct smears, meanwhile 71 (88/75%) of these samples were positive for Neisseria gonorrhoeae culture as well. The most frequency of N.gonorrhoeae infection was respectively observed in 47-56 and 16-27 age groups. Conclusion: The results showed that the age of patients infected with N.gonorrhoeae are higher with compared to observed in similar studies in western and even Asian countries that indicates the influence of health education in the reduction of infection among the youth population