By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

A new drug-resistant strain of MRSA, the so-called flesh-eating bacteria, has been found to be spreading among gay men in San Francisco and Boston and may now be moving into gay populations in other major cities, researchers said Jan. 14.

The drug-resistant “superbug” is 13 times more likely to hit gay men than others in San Francisco, said scientists at the University of California-San Francisco. About one of every 588 people living in San Francisco’s heavily gay Castro District has already been infected, they said.

“These multi-drug resistant infections often affect gay men at body sites in which skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activities,” said Binh Diep, a scientist at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center and lead author of a report on the findings.

In addition to the cases in San Francisco, medical officials have also reported cases of the superbug among gay men in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and London. Since the bacteria can be spread by casual contact, as well as sexual contact, researchers fear that it may also be on the verge of moving into the general population.

“Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable,” Diep said.

Officials at Howard Brown Health Center, which provides medical services to large numbers of gay men in Chicago, said they haven’t seen this particular strain of MRSA yet.

“I’ve not seen this kind of resistance profile yet,” said Dr. Tom Barrett of HBHC. “It’s not an unexpected thing given that it’s a highly resistant bug.”

A good scrubbing with soap and water may be the most effective way to prevent skin-to-skin contact transmission, especially after sexual activities, Diep said.

The bacteria differs from the more familiar community-associated MRSA in that it is resistant not only to methicillin, but also resistant to a group of normally effective, first-line antibiotics.

“This particular clone is resistant to at least three other drugs—clindamycin, tetracycline and mupirocin,” Henry F. Chambers, a co-author of the study, told the New York Times.

Staph infections may initially appear as raised red dots on the skin. Untreated, infected areas can swell and fill with pus. The bacteria may also cause deep-tissue infections by spreading through a wound in the skin.

The rising incidence of MRSA coincides with increased rates of syphilis, rectal gonorrhea and new HIV infections among gay men. The researchers attributed those rates to changes in beliefs about the severity of HIV and an increase in risky behaviors, such as illicit drug use and having sex that abrades the skin.

“Your likelihood of contracting each of these diseases increases with the number of sexual partners that you have,” Diep said. “The same can probably be said for MRSA.”