Gonococcal (GC) genital tract infection was first recognized by Hippocrates in the fifth century BC and later given its name - "gonorrhea" meaning "flow of semen" - by Galen in second century AD (Woods 2005). Despite the passage of time, much research, the advent of sensitive and specific diagnostic tests and effective antimicrobial therapy, gonorrhea remains one of the most prevalent bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STI), in both industrialized and developing countries. This chapter focuses on gonococcal infections in two groups - newborns who acquire infection from their mothers at the time of delivery, and adolescents: a group at the center of the ongoing worldwide STI epidemic.
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