1 Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic, El Paso County Health Department and Department of Social Services, Colorado Springs
During the last decade, investigators have firmly associated the transmission of gonococcal infection to children with sexual abuse.1 Reports linking acquisition of disease with childhood sexual activity, however, have been sparse and scantily detailed.2-5 To our knowledge, asymptomatic gonococcal urethritis in a child has not previously been reported.
We present the clinical features and sociosexual circumstances surrounding gonococcal infection in three children younger than 10 years of age, two of whom acquired urethritis (one asymptomatically) from the third, and discuss the epidemiologic implications.
PROLOGUE
All patients described are white. The index case was a 4-year-old boy complaining of dysuria, meatal pus, and back pain of three days' duration.
Submitted on October 24, 1985