MRSA jumps sixfold among people with HIV

Link: Gay.com UK.

     Gay male patients were five times more likely to get MRSA than people who’d contracted HIV heterosexually or through drug use. This was a stronger association than having a low CD4 count: having a seriously low count (under 50) only increased your chances of getting MRSA 2.4 times. But having a HIV viral load over 10,000 also increased the chances of MRSA fivefold –- and sixfold if it was over 100,000. The annual incidence of MRSA increased 6.2 times over the three years of the study. One explanation may be that patients are less likely to be on Septrin: patients who’d taken over four months of Septrin were less likely to get MRSA infections than those who hadn’t. The strains of community-acquired MRSA identified were almost entirely resistant to the commonly-used antibiotics ciprofloxacin and erythromycin. One in six trains was resistant to tetracycline and nearly one in five to Septrin –- 9 times more resistant than strains acquired in hospital. However, the bug was still treatable with the antibiotic vancomycin and 97% were susceptible to the TB drug rifampicin.