Researchers Confirm Dermatophilosis Spread Among European Men Who Have Sex With Men

STAT (5/11, Branswell, Subscription Publication) reports European researchers have “diagnosed a number of men who have sex with other men with dermatophilosis, a skin disease that normally infects livestock, even though the cases had no known exposure to affected animals.” In two studies published ahead of print in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, “doctors reported small clusters of infections” in Barcelona and Lyon, “with the latter group having some ties to Paris and several other French cities.” According to STAT, the “clusters of infections are in some ways reminiscent of the emergence of mpox in 2022 in networks of gay men and other men who have sex with men. But people who have diagnosed some of these dermatophilosis cases describe a disease that is much milder in presentation.” To date, all diagnosed cases have “either cleared up on their own or were treated successfully with antibiotics.”