Sexually active men are MRSA superspreaders

Link: GayCityNews - Resistant Staph Spreads Among NYC Gay Men.

The New York City gay health clinic first noted an increase in cases in early 2004, Mayer said. Among gay men nationally, the bug's spread was first observed in an outbreak affecting dozens of gay men in Los Angeles in late 2002. By early 2004, private physicians across the country who treat large numbers of gay men were seeing cases. Other gay clinics are also seeing cases. Dr. Kenneth Mayer, medical research director at Boston's Fenway Community Health, said that clinic saw less than 10 MRSA cases a year until 2003, when there were 20. The clinic saw just under 100 in 2004 and between 120 and 130 cases in 2005. "At this point we're seeing cases at least once a week," Fenway's Mayer said. "The number has definitely dramatically gone up." While doctors are not required to report MRSA cases to the health authorities, the New York City health department launched an investigation roughly 18 months ago and has interviewed about 500 people who were infected with the bug. About 65 percent of the 500 cases are among men and 65 percent of those are men who have sex with men. The city has looked at only some of its MRSA cases and received a number of referrals from Callen-Lorde. "We're really only seeing a portion of the patients that are being diagnosed with MRSA in the city," said Dr. Melissa Marx, director of science in the health department's Bureau of Communicable Disease. "Our main goal at the end of the investigation is to figure out what the exposures are, what the risk factors are, then we can develop prevention materials and get them out to the public."

Comments

[Rhoda Laughary]

I have only met one couple with HIV and MRSA so far but did not know of the emerging statistics of it being spread in the male gay community. I fear that this will further hinder public motivation to do more faster like when HIV first appeared as the Gay Disease. I wonder often how much of the silence about MRSA I find on the subject is related to the fact that many of the victims are either gay or needle sharing drug users. I have also found first hand that many here with MRSA don't want to admit to the disease already for fear of being treated like lepers in the community, just as it has been with HIV. I appreciate this article and hope it gets more responses from those who can DO something about these diseases and their containment i.e. warning the general public how HIV moved into the mainstream population as has MRSA, which appears to be even more contageous. This is not a hospital disease any more than it is gay disease. Thank you for your article.

[Kerry Waterman]

Alright
Well first I am 14
And when I was 12 I got my first case of MRSA
And I am not gay and I wasn't at a hospital when I got it.
Im not the only one in my family that got it. My sister and my dad got it too. And none of us were at the hospital when we got it. And none of us had sex with the same sex. So how did we get it???