Resistant skin malady hits L.A. gay men
Gay.com / PlanetOut.com
Christopher Lisotta
DECEMBER 27, 2002
Since the fall of 2002, the number of gay men in Los Angeles County suffering from boils, inflammation and abscesses on their hands, legs and genitals has exploded, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Worrying doctors is the fact that the new strain of staph thwarts drugs like penicillin and other commonly used oral antibiotics, including the more powerful fluoroquinolones. This is forcing medical authorities to prescribe much more expensive drugs like Zyvox, and antibiotics taken intravenously, such as vancomycin, in order to treat the infections.
"The concern is this organism could spread to and cause disease in the community at large," infectious disease specialist Dr. Peter Ruane told the Times. "It seems to be able to attack normal skin in healthy people."
For years drug-resistant staph has been a problem in nursing homes and hospitals, but recently pockets of infection have been found outside medical institutions. At this point doctors aren't exactly sure how the infection is contracted, but some say the rising rate of infection among gay men indicate it may be passed by skin-to-skin contact at clubs or gyms, and during sex.
"It's serious because there seems to be a preponderance of cases in gay men," Dr. Robert Bolan, medical director at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. "It has a lot of similarities to other epidemic infections in our community -- HIV, syphilis, hepatitis; it's the same old broken record story. You have a bacterial infection that can be easily transmitted from one person to another that can have serious consequences."
The county, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is trying to figure out how exactly the infection is spread in order to find a way to better combat it. Bolan and other front-line medical providers are being asked to track the number and severity of cases they see in their practices.
Bolan said the majority of cases he has seen involve patients who also have HIV, but he added "I don't know if this problem is exclusively in the HIV-positive population, or across the board. Either way, the boils and ulcers that form on the skin are severe.
"They are nasty, and can be vigorous and persistent," he added, encouraging anyone who exhibits the symptoms of a skin staph infection to seek medical attention immediately.