Why You Shouldn’t Panic About ‘Gay Ringworm’ Infection

metroweekly.com:

It might seem like another summer of Gay Sex Panic. News earlier this month from New York of a rare, drug-resistant fungal infection in a gay man follows Summer 2022’s Mpox mayhem and Summer 2021’s oceanside outbreak of COVID in the wake of Bear Week in Provincetown, Mass.

Before anyone runs for the hypochondriac hills, however, clinicians are advising that the “First case of rare, sexually transmitted form of ringworm reported in the U.S.,” as NBC puts it, may be a bit more challenging than garden-variety jock itch, but shouldn’t conjure fungal-apocalypse fears worthy of The Last of Us.“Hopefully there will be no zombies,” says Dr.

Marcus Sandling, with a chuckle.Sandling is the clinical director of sexual health at New York’s Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, which focuses on LGBTQ health. “That’s the hope.” Dr.

Avrom Caplan, a dermatologist with New York University’s Langone Health Medical Center, explained to Gothamist that this particular fungal infection, trichophyton mentagrophytes type VII (TMVII), “can be very itchy and scaly, like typical ringworm, but it also has the potential to be inflammatory and cause abscesses and scarring.” He further described TMVII as a “superficial skin infection.” Sandling, who tells Metro Weekly he’s not personally aware of any cases of TMVII at Callen-Lorde, says he’s fairly certain there are more cases in New York than the single gay man identified as infected after recent travel in Europe, where a handful of cases have been seen in gay men, and who had multiple sexual partners while there.Still, he adds, “I don’t want us to have another panic.