Bacterial Vaginosis May Be Sexually Transmitted, New Study Shows

Well|A Third of Women Get This Infection. The Fix: Treat Their Male Partners.

Bacterial vaginosis is a poorly understood infection that affects one in three women and can bring with it uncomfortable symptoms and, sometimes, long-term health complications. Treatment is often unsuccessful, with 60 percent of B.V. cases recurring within a year, keeping women stuck in a disruptive cycle of going on and off antibiotics.

A study published today shows the results of a novel treatment regimen so effective that an independent safety-monitoring group advised halting the trial early so that all participants could access it.

The key? Treating the women’s male partners.

The findings are “pretty significant for women’s health,” said Dr. Christina Muzny, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She was not involved in the study but coauthored an editorial about its findings in the New England Journal of Medicine. Not only do the study results change how B.V. could be treated going forward, she said, but they also seem to confirm a long-held suspicion among scientists that the condition is actually a sexually transmitted infection.

“Patients and providers are going to need renewed education on B.V.,” Dr. Muzny said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe B.V. as a condition that occurs when there is an imbalance of vaginal bacteria, but “we don’t know if it’s one bacteria or a group of bacteria” or what throws off the balance, Dr. Muzny said.

Many women don’t have symptoms; those who do may experience increased discharge, a fishy odor and burning or itching in the vaginal area. Infected patients, whether or not they are symptomatic, are at greater risk of developing other sexually transmitted infections, such as chlamydia or H.I.V., as well as pelvic inflammatory disease. B.V. in pregnant women is also associated with an increased risk of preterm birth.

The standard treatment for B.V. is a weeklong course of antibiotics taken either orally or vaginally, said Dr. Paul Nyirjesy, co-director of the Jefferson Vulvovaginal Health Center in Philadelphia, PA. But its high recurrence rate means patients have to get “treated over and over and over — five, six, 10 times,” which can impact their quality of life and their sex lives. Some patients are put on prolonged regimens of six or seven months to suppress the bacteria, he said, but once they stop treatment, the infection often comes back.