Gonorrhoea

What it is

Neisseria gonorrhoea, the gonococcus, is one of the bacteria that infect a joint, one of the two pathogens of pelvic inflammatory disease with Chlamydia trachomatis, and one of the causes of bacterial conjunctivitis. On a gram stain it is a gram-negative diplococcus. Transmission is by sexual contact, vaginal, anal or oral sex, and by vertical transmission from mother to baby during childbirth. Written out more fully, gonorrhoea is caused by the Gram negative diplococcus Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and acute infection can occur on any mucous membrane surface, typically genitourinary but also rectum and pharynx. The incubation period of gonorrhoea is 2-5 days. Beside Neisseria meningitidis it is set out as a Gram-negative, facultative intracellular pathogen that invades mucosal surfaces and forms pus, with genitals, rectum and throat as its sites. It is also named among the bacterial causes of acute pharyngitis, and among the organisms that rarely infect a Bartholin cyst to make an abscess. Immunisation is not possible and reinfection is common because of antigen variation of type IV pili, proteins which adhere to surfaces, and Opa proteins, surface proteins which bind to receptors on immune cells.