Men taking antibiotics could cut prices of bacterial vaginosis in women

Women with bacterial vaginosis, a recurring condition that increases the risk of pregnancy complications, could benefit from their male sexual parties being treated with antibiotics, according to a study that found that this almost halved the risk of symptoms turning.

“Treatment of male partners made the most meaning effort to improve residence rates in women that we have seen for decades,” says Catriona Bradshaw at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, who led work.

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) affects about a quarter of women of reproductive age around the world. It occurs when “harmful” bacteria monitor in the vagina, causing vaginal flood to turn gray -white and smelly, with potentially serious complications. “It increases a woman’s risk of acquiring a wide range of sexel -transmitted infections, such as HIV, and complications of pregnancy, such as premature birth and wrong creation,” says Bradshaw.

Doctors usually treat the condition with the help of antibiotics in the form of pills or a cream that can be applied to vagina, but symptoms often repeat themselves because having sex seems to reintroduce problem -mad bacteria, Bradshaw says. “One in two women will get their BV back within three to six months after the resumed treatment regime,” says Bradshaw.

To tackle this, Bradshaw and her colleagues recruited 137 monogamous women in Australia with bacterial vaginosis with their male partners. All the women took standard antibiotics for a week while we got about half of their partners got oral antibiotics and were told to apply an antibiotic cream on the penis during the same period. The remaining men received no treatment. None of the participants were transient.

Three months later, 63 per Hundreds of women whose partners were not treated, recurring symptoms, while only 35 percent of women with partners reintroduced antibiotics experienced a repeat. “It is certainly a significant effect that makes it a valuable intervention for this group of women,” says Janneke Van de Wijgert at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

“I see a tone of women who are out of the way in Noboing BV, and definitely, I will get this new information for my own clinical practice,” says Christina Muzny at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

The team does not track all the participants in the long term, but some came back in contact years later to say that they are back from symptoms. “In the last weekend, it talked to someone who has been free of BV in two years since they participated – and these women were very recurring before the trial,” says Lenka Vodstrcil at Monash University.

However, the procedure does not work for women with relaxed sexual partners where it can be difficult to get them to adhere to to take antibiotics, says Van de Wijgert. Even in monogamous relationships, men may not always be the will to take antibiotics, she says. “We have this with condom use, which also reduces BV re -study – it can really be for women to get their male partners to use condoms.”