**4. Retesting posttreatment to diagnose recurrent infections**

Population-based prevention may be improved through the retesting and diagnosis of chlamydia and gonorrhea 3 months after the initial diagnosis [38, 39]. Patients who were diagnosed with chlamydia or gonorrhea need to be retested 3 months after treatment to exclude recurrent infection and confirm treatment success. The fact that there could be a false diagnosis based only on signs and symptoms, further reemphasizes why retesting after the treatment is important. Also, it is recommended that any patient who had a diagnosis and treatment of syphilis need to have follow-up serologic syphilis screening. These recommendations are difficult to implement in resource-limited settings because most patients patronize the nonregulated private sector where services are mostly provided by untrained personnel.
