Rare sexual disease in Canada

||A rare sexually transmitted disease some are calling the "new AIDS" has made its way to Canada.

There have been 22 cases of lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) reported in Canada in recent months, all in homosexual and bisexual men with high-risk sexual practices, according to a report published yesterday in the on-line edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In fact, the way LGV is spreading -- among men who have anonymous sex in bath houses (and the latest variation, encounters arranged via Internet chat groups) -- is eerily similar to the beginnings of the HIV-AIDS epidemic.

Unlike HIV-AIDS, however, LGV, a bacterial infection, is easily treatable with antibiotics. But the symptoms -- small painless lesions on the genitals and swollen glands -- are probably not familiar to most doctors. What's more, an infection with LGV increases the risk of contracting and spreading HIV-AIDS and hepatitis, partly because it creates sores, making it easier for viruses to enter the bloodstream. ||

via GlobeAndMail