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Gonorrhoea - Management
When and how should sexual partners be notified?

  • Partner notification is essential for all people with newly diagnosed gonorrhoea.
    • For people with symptomatic anogenital gonorrhoea, all partners within the preceding 2 weeks should be notified, or their most recent partner, if this was longer than 2 weeks ago.
    • For people with asymptomatic gonorrhoea, or gonorrhoea at other sites, all partners within the preceding 3 months should be notified.
  • Three methods of partner notification are used. For each method, the healthcare professional should document all actions and outcomes.
    • Patient referral: the person with gonorrhoea is encouraged to notify their past and present partners. This is the usual method used in primary care and the only practical option if provider referral is not available.
    • Provider referral: the healthcare professional notifies the person's partners on their behalf. This option is recommended, but is often not available in primary care. Ideally, provider referral should be facilitated by a trained health adviser in a genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinic (see Admission and referral). If referral to a GUM clinic is not possible, a primary healthcare professional who has undergone appropriate training and has support from healthcare advisers in GUM is the next best option.
    • Contract referral: the person with gonorrhoea is encouraged to notify their partners, with the understanding that a healthcare professional will later notify those partners who do not visit the health service within an allotted time. This option is not usually suitable in a primary care setting.
  • Notified partners should be screened for sexually transmitted infections and treated empirically for gonorrhoea and chlamydia whilst waiting for results (azithromycin 1 gram as a single oral dose or doxycycline 100 mg twice a day for 7 days are suitable choices).

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