The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) continued to rise in 2019 with provisional figures indicating a 17% rise in diagnoses of gonorrhoea to 2,823 new cases and a 16% increase in chlamydia to 9,180 new cases.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre’s provisional figures also show a 6% increase in new diagnoses of herpes and a 3% increase in HIV, to 537, last year. The highest number of diagnoses was for chlamydia. There were 787 new cases of syphilis.

The HSE said: “We expect when figures are finalised that approximately half of chlamydia [diagnoses] will have occurred in young people of 15-24 years, and that gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men will have been disproportionately affected by syphilis and gonorrhoea, with approximately four out of five cases of syphilis and two in three cases of gonorrhoea occurring in this population.”