Real-time laboratory surveillance of sexually-transmissible infections in Marseille University hospitals reveals rise of gonorrhoea, syphilis and human immunodeficiency virus seroconversions in 2012.

Real-time systematic monitoring of the number of infections diagnosed in our clinical microbiology laboratory in Marseille recently drew attention to the fact that the incidence of gonorrhoea was 10-fold greater from September through December 2012 than during same months of previous years. We also found an increase in the annual incidence of syphilis and human immunodeficiency virus seroconversion. Our system allowed timely identification of an increase in sexually-transmitted infections in Marseille for the whole year of 2012.