Drug-resistant Staph Passed In Gay Sex -US Study

Monk-Eye · 01-15-08, 05:31 PM

"Drug-resistant staph passed in gay sex -US study"

Quote:

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Monday.

They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

Sexually active gay men in San Francisco are 13 times more likely to be infected than their heterosexual neighbors, the researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

"Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," said Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who led the study. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention."

This superbug can cause life-threatening and disfiguring infections and can often only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics.

It killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005, most of them in hospitals, according to a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Of those people who carry staph, most carry it in their noses but community-based MRSA also can live in and around the anus and is passed between sexual partners.

Incidence of MRSA is rising along with the resurgence of syphilis, rectal gonorrhea, and new HIV infections partly because of changes in beliefs about the severity of HIV and an increase in risky behaviors, such as illicit drug use and having sex that abrades the skin, Diep's team wrote.

"Your likelihood of contracting each of these diseases increases with the number of sexual partners that you have," Diep said. "The same can probably be said for MRSA." Staph infections often look like raised red dots on the skin. Left untreated, the areas can swell and fill with pus.

The best way to avoid infection is by washing the hands or genitals with soap and water, Diep said.

WI Crippler · 01-15-08, 05:36 PM

I think this would have to do more with longer exposure to extremely close contact(which gay men have plenty of) rather than sex itself. These drug resistant staph infections are showing up in jiu-jitsu,wrestling and mixed martial arts schools as well, where there is a heavy amount of physical contact, sans penetration......

Monk-Eye · 01-16-08, 08:32 AM

"Environmental Hygeine"

Quote:

Originally Posted by WI Crippler

I think this would have to do more with longer exposure to extremely close contact(which gay men have plenty of) rather than sex itself. These drug resistant staph infections are showing up in jiu-jitsu,wrestling and mixed martial arts schools as well, where there is a heavy amount of physical contact, sans penetration......

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

Quote:

- The organism is often sub-categorized as Community-Associated MRSA ( CA-MRSA) or Hospital-Associated MRSA ( HA-MRSA) depending upon the circumstances of acquiring disease, based on current data that these are distinct strains of the bacterial species.

About 75 percent of CA-MRSA infections are localized to skin and soft tissue and usually can be treated effectively; however CA-MRSA strains display enhanced virulence, spreading more rapidly and causing illness much more severe than traditional HA-MRSA infections, which can affect vital organs and lead to widespread infection (sepsis), toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing ("flesh-eating") pneumonia. This is thought to be due to toxins carried by CA-MRSA strains, such as PVL and PSM.

CA-MRSA often results in abscess formation that requires incision and drainage. Before the spread of MRSA into the community, abscesses were not considered contagious because it was assumed that infection required violation of skin integrity and the introduction of staphylococci from normal skin colonization. However, newly emerging CA-MRSA is transmissible (similar, but with very important differences) from Hospital-Associated MRSA.

It is not known why some healthy people develop CA-MRSA skin infections that are treatable whereas others infected with the same strain develop severe infections or die.