After over two decades since it was first discovered, some scientists based in the United Kingdom have confirmed the existence of a new sexually transmitted infection, STI, called mycoplasma genitalium, or MG for short.
A team of fourteen researchers recently came to a conclusion on the bacterial disease, which among other things causes painful urination, after conducting a national survey on the sexual lifestyles and attitudes of British men and women.
The study, which involved testing the urine from 4,507 sexually experienced participants aged between 16 to 44 years for MG, “strengthens evidence that MG is an STI”.
The researchers explained that, “MG was identified in over one per cent of the population, including in men with high-risk behaviours in older age groups that are often not included in STI prevention measures.”
Noting that men of black ethnicity were more likely to test positive for MG, the study showed that the prevalence rate of the disease was 1.2 per cent in men and 1.3 per cent in women.
It further found out that for both men and women, the disease was strongly associated with reporting risk behaviours such as increasing the number of total and new partners and unsafe sex in the past year.
Although it recorded no positive MG tests in men aged 16 to19, prevalence peaked at 2.1 per cent in men aged 25–34 years, while prevalence in was highest in 16 to 19-year-olds at 2.4 per cent and decrease with age.
It added, “Men with MG were more likely to report previously diagnosed gonorrhoea, syphilis or non-specific urethritis, and women previous trichomoniasis.”
An article about the study posted on health.com quoted a clinical associate professor, Raquel Dardik, as saying the symptoms for women included irritation, painful urination and bleeding after sex, while those for men included painful urination and watery discharge from the penis.
The post indicated that the disease has been linked to both inflammation in the cervix (cervicitis) and pelvic inflammatory disease, which a serious condition is often caused by other STDs like chlamydia and gonorrhoea.
Dardik was also quoted as saying that around 10 per cent of women who develop PID (which causes abdominal pain, fever, painful cervix, and pain or bleeding during sex), could blame MG as the underlying cause.
She, however, said people could get tested for MD and that it was treatable with the antibiotic azithromycin, adding that the use of condoms was an effective way of preventing it.
On his part, Dr. Jorgen Jensen of the Mycoplasma Laboratory, Statens Serum Institut in Denmark asserted that although the single-dose azithromycin treatment was best for MG, it was not good enough.
He noted in an article published in an issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases that although initial in vitro studies suggested that antibiotics of the tetracycline class were active, clinical experience soon demonstrated their inefficiency in producing both microbiologic and clinical cure.
Dr. Jensen added that two recently published observational studies of 120 Australian and 183 Norwegian MG-positive patients found that only 84 per cent and 79 per cent, respectively, were cured by a single 1-g dose of azithromycin.
“(A study the study by) Mena et al provides a clear-cut answer to the question of whether multidose doxycycline or single-dose azithromycin is most efficient for the treatment of M. genitalium—positive urethritis; undoubtedly, azithromycin is best. However, it is not good enough, and additional studies of new approaches are definitely needed,” he said.
