Deadly Staph Infection MRSA Strikes Gay Community [View All]

[AngryAmish]

" new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found gay men are at increased risk to become infected with a new highly antibiotic-resistant strain of MRSA, also known as the Staph 'superbug'. The potentially deadly MRSA strain has already appeared in the gay communities of San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
The new Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus strain, named USA300, is particularly resistant to front line antibiotics. Often referred to in the media as the 'superbug', MRSA is generally transmitted from skin to skin contact and can also be spread by touching contaminated surfaces, but the germ appears to be transmitted most easily through intimate sexual contact.

Dr. Binh Diep, PhD, a scientist at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center and lead author of the report explained to the San Francisco Chronicle “his study found that up to 40 per cent of infections are occurring in the buttocks and genitalia, suggesting that the bug is spreading by sexual contact.”

Although the Center for Disease Control has not labeled it as an STD, sexually active gay men have been reported to be 13 times more likely to acquire the disease than other parts of the general public."


I know this was brought up yesterday but this article is so much better than the stuff on the wire services.

There are obvious sensitivities about unfairly branding gay men as diseased etc. It happened before when HIV first appeared. But this is scary stuff and we have to deal with this problem. Remember education is the first and most important step in public health.