New Bacteria Strain Is Striking Gay Men

A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday.

In a study published on-line by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most effortlessly through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces.

The authors warned that unless microbiology laboratories had been able to identify the strain and doctors prescribed the correct antibiotic therapy, the infection could soon spread among other groups and turn into a wider threat.

The new strain appears to have “spread rapidly” in gay populations in San Francisco and Boston, the researchers wrote, and “has the prospective for rapid, nationwide dissemination” among gay men.

The study was according to a assessment of medical records from outpatient clinics in San Francisco and Boston and nine medical centers in San Francisco.

The Castro district in San Francisco has the highest number of gay residents inside the country, based on the University of California, San Francisco. 1 in 588 residents is infected with the new multidrug-resistant MRSA strain, the study identified. That compares with 1 in 3,800 people in San Francisco, based on statistical analyses based on ZIP codes.

A separate portion of the study discovered that gay men in San Francisco had been about 13 times more likely to be infected than other folks inside the city.

The San Francisco researchers suggested that scrubbing with soap and water may well be the most successful way to quit skin-to-skin transmission, especially following sexual activities.

MRSA, for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was when spread chiefly in hospitals. But in current years, several healthy men and women have acquired it outside hospitals.

Nearly 19,000 people died within the United States from MRSA infections in 2005, the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention has reported.

The infection can cause unusually severe issues, including abscesses and skin ulcers. The bacteria can invade by means of the skin to generate necrotizing fasciitis, giving them the common name of flesh-eating bacteria. They can also cause pneumonia, damage the heart and create widespread infection through the blood.

Among gay men within the study, MRSA was spread by skin contact, causing abscesses and infection in the buttocks and genital region.

The new strain is closely related to earlier ones. Both are called MRSA USA300.

The strain is a lot a lot more difficult to treat because it truly is resistant not just to methicillin, but also a lot of much more of the antibiotics utilised to treat the earlier strains, stated Dr. Henry F. Chambers, an author of the new study.

The new strain contains a plasmid called pUSA03.

“This certain clone is resistant to at least 3 other drugs, clindamycin, tetracycline and mupirocin,” Dr. Chambers said in a telephone interview.

Of the alternatives recommended by the C.D.C. as well as the Infectious Illnesses Society of America, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim), clindamycin as well as a tetracycline, “this strain is resistant to two of those three,” he added. “In addition, the new strain is resistant to mupirocin, which has been advocated for eradicating the strain from carriers.”