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Gays: More cases of rare disease

Lymphogranuloma venereum, or LGV, is a form of chlamydia that can damage the bowels and scar the anus. Among the few patients that have been identified in the United States, most also had the AIDS virus.

Homosexual/Bisexual - Health issues

GAYS: More cases of rare disease

Two cases of rare disease

11:13 2005-02-03

A rare sexually transmitted disease that can scar the genitals has been found in two patients in New York, and the strain is the same as that recently detected in Europe, the city's health commissioner said Wednesday.

Lymphogranuloma venereum, or LGV, is a form of chlamydia that can damage the bowels and scar the anus. Among the few patients that have been identified in the United States, most also had the AIDS virus, Health Department Commissioner Thomas Frieden said at a news conference.

"We know LGV increases the risk of the spread of HIV because it causes ulcers and bleeding," he said.

Frieden said the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier confirmed three LGV cases in San Francisco and one in Atlanta. He said gay and bisexual men were urged to abstain from sex or limit their number of sex partners and use condoms.

Unprotected anal intercourse is the key risk factor for the spread of LGV. Symptoms include painful rectal infections, but the first symptom may be a painless pimple or lesion on the genitals, tells the Seattle Post.

The cases are among the first reported in the United States and match a strain of the disease that only began to surface in Europe in recent years.

The disease, lymphogranuloma venereum, known as LGV, is a rare form of chlamydia that can cause acute illness, lifelong disability and disfigurement as well as fuel the spread of H.I.V./AIDS through open sores. A majority of those infected, both in Europe and the United States, have been gay men who engage in anal intercourse.

Health officials would not go into detail about the two infected men in New York except to say the cases appeared unrelated.

Some of the symptoms may have showed up in doctors' examinations, but they were not connected to the disease until further lab tests were performed by health officials on the federal and local levels, publishes the New York Times.

NR

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