Australia's Gonorrhoea and Syphilis Surge: What a Decade of Data Shows

Australia recorded 42,393 gonorrhoea notifications and 5,986 infectious syphilis notifications in 2025, after 10-year increases of 57% and 56% respectively, according to UNSW Kirby Institute sexual health data reported by The Guardian. Notifications are cases reported to health authorities. Rates of reported gonorrhoea and infectious syphilis, the stage when syphilis can be passed to others, each rose by more than 50% over the decade to 2025.

Who the numbers hit hardest

Men accounted for 73% of gonorrhoea notifications and 78% of infectious syphilis notifications in 2025. The gonorrhoea notification rate has been higher among males than females every year, according to the Kirby Institute.

The pace of change is not the same for both sexes. Syphilis notification rates increased by 167% among women over the 10-year period, compared with 39% among men. The absolute number of cases remains higher in men. The proportional increase is much faster in women.

Congenital syphilis, infection passed from mother to baby during pregnancy, accounts for a small number of notifications but severe outcomes. There were 113 congenital syphilis cases in Australia over the 10-year period to 2025, of which 40 infants died. Around half of those congenital cases involved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are diagnosed with gonorrhoea at more than four times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. For syphilis, the diagnosis rate is more than six times higher.

How we got here

Earlier Kirby Institute releases provide context for the trajectory. In 2022, Australia recorded 32,877 gonorrhoea diagnoses, 6,036 infectious syphilis diagnoses and 93,777 chlamydia diagnoses, according to the Kirby Institute. A September 2025 Kirby update described chlamydia diagnoses as high and stable, while syphilis and gonorrhoea diagnoses had more than doubled over the preceding decade. The 2025 notification totals, published on 14 September 2026, now form the authoritative endpoint.

What the pattern points to

The broader context here is distribution, not only volume. A 57% rise in gonorrhoea and a 56% rise in infectious syphilis over 10 years describe national notification trends. The sex-specific and population-specific rates describe where transmission networks and detection gaps are concentrated.

Looking at what this means for public health planning, three patterns stand out from the data. First, persistent male predominance coexists with rapid growth in female syphilis notifications. That combination increases the population at risk for pregnancy-associated infection. Second, 113 congenital cases with 40 deaths over a decade indicate continued vertical transmission from mother to child with fatal outcomes. Third, the fourfold and sixfold differentials for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians indicate an entrenched inequity that national averages obscure.

In my view, the congenital and Indigenous figures will carry particular weight for policymakers and clinicians. Congenital syphilis is preventable through timely maternal screening and treatment, which makes each notification a systems signal. The concentration of congenital cases among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants, alongside markedly higher gonorrhoea and syphilis diagnosis rates, points to differential access, timely care and follow-up rather than to national incidence alone.