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MRSA Infection Spreads By Sex

Posted on: Thursday, 11 January 2007, 06:00 CST

By Anita Manning

A virulent, drug-resistant form of staph bacteria that has spread across the USA since it was identified in 2000 can be spread by sexual activity, a mode of transmission that is "important and previously unrecognized," a study shows.

Scientists at Columbia University Medical Center, reporting in the Feb. 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, identified three cases in which the bacteria known as community-associated MRSA passed between sexual partners.

The report is the first to document the spread of MRSA through heterosexual activity, says Rachel Gorwitz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"MRSA is transmitted by direct skin-to-skin contact," she says, "so it's not surprising it could be transmitted during sex."

MRSA once occurred primarily in hospitalized patients. But in recent years, a new strain has emerged that causes persistent skin infections in young, healthy people who have not been hospitalized, including football players and military recruits.

In the study, researchers examined 114 households in Manhattan where MRSA infections had been identified and found three in which the bacteria was spread by sexual activity.

In two cases, the women said they regularly shaved their pubic area, and their sexual partners had "pimples" in the groin area, researchers say.

In a third, the woman had MRSA-positive abscesses on her buttock, and her husband later developed a rash and MRSA-positive boils on his body. One of the women also had herpes.

The spread of MRSA through sexual activity has been seen by emergency room doctors, says James Roberts of Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia.

In a letter published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine in January, he reported treating a lap dancer for MRSA infections on her buttocks.

"She relayed that other lap dancers at her club had similar problems, considered a known occupational hazard by the women," he wrote.

Researcher Frank Lowy, lead author of the Columbia report, says the study indicates that people should refrain from sex if they have open lesions. "They have to be alert to the fact there's a new bug in town," he says, "and one potential means of transmission is sexual activity." (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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