Incubation period
2 to 14 days. In men it is often 2 to 5.
When a test becomes reliable
About 1 to 2 weeks after exposure.
Symptoms
- In men: thick white, yellow or green discharge, and pain or burning when passing urine
- In women: often mild or absent; when present, more discharge than usual or bleeding between periods
- Pain or swelling in one testicle
- Throat and rectal infections are usually completely silent
Good to know
- It infects the throat and the rectum as readily as the genitals, and those sites are the ones people forget to test
- The WHO lists it as a priority pathogen: strains resistant to nearly every available antibiotic have already appeared
- Around 82 million new infections a year worldwide
- It cannot survive long outside the body, so it is not passed on by toilet seats or towels
How it was discovered
Galen named it in the second century from the Greek for flow of seed — he thought the discharge was semen leaking out, which was wrong about both the fluid and the cause, and the wrong name stuck for eighteen centuries. The bacterium itself was found in 1879 by Albert Neisser, who was 24 at the time, and it carries his name: Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
Sources:
Last updated: September 2026
This page is general information, not a diagnosis and not medical advice. Symptoms overlap between infections, and many infections have none at all — only a test can tell. If you think you have been exposed, talk to a doctor.