A new strain of a fearsome superbug
has hit communities of gay men hard and is spreading
rapidly, says a study published online in mid-January
in Annals of Internal Medicine.
The incidence of a particularly
deadly strain of community-associated multidrug-resistant
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA),
called USA300, is fully seven times higher in gay communities
in Boston and San Francisco than in the general population,
the study found. In San Francisco's Castro district,
one in 588 gay men is a USA300 carrier, compared to
one in 3,846 in the city's general population. Further
reports of USA300 outbreaks in gay men have recently
come from other major urban centres, including New York
City, Los Angeles, and Toronto, setting off widespread
panic in the media about a "new gay disease" or a "new
HIV."
But study co-author Dr Henry Chambers,
a University of California, San Francisco infectious
disease specialist, has warned against perceptions of
MRSA as a gay-only disease. "This is definitely not
the new AIDS," he told Newsweek.
SEXUAL
SPREAD
The study found that USA300 infections were associated
with high-risk behaviours, including use of methamphetamine
and other illicit drugs, sex with multiple partners,
participation in a group sex party, use of the internet
for sexual contacts, skin-abrading sex and a history
of sexually transmitted infections.
The bacteria can be carried on
the skin, inside a nostril or on clothing. Doctors say
the best way to destroy it is simply through basic hygiene
practices like washing well with soap and water.
MRSA infections generally begin
as a small sore which then begins to grow and swell.
In USA300 cases, if the symptoms are spotted quickly,
patients may respond to a trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole
combo. Advanced cases need a rigorous five- to six-day
treatment of intravenous antibiotics.
The various strains of the bacteria
now kill more people annually than AIDS or emphysema,
taking an estimated 19,000 lives in the US in 2005,
according to a Journal of the American Medical Association
report published last fall.
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