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.
In the study, which was conducted at multiple sexual health and family planning centers in Australia, researchers gave 83 monogamous couples the standard treatment of a seven-day course of antibiotics for the female partner. Meanwhile, 81 other monogamous couples received treatment for the male partner too, which included a seven-day course of oral antibiotics and a topical antibiotic that was applied to the penis. After 12 weeks, 35 percent of women in the partner treatment group had B.V. again compared to 63 percent in the standard treatment group. A majority of men experienced no side effects with the treatment but some reported nausea, headaches or a metallic taste.
Potential risk factors for B.V. recurrence include having an intrauterine device or having sex with an uncircumcised partner. This study found that even among patients with those risk factors, treating both partners reduced recurrence, said Dr. Catriona Bradshaw, the lead author of the study and a clinician at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre at Monash University.
For decades, reproductive health experts have suspected that B.V. was sexually transmitted. While doing research in central and east Africa over 20 years ago, Dr. Bradshaw found that “recurrence was double or triple in women who had an ongoing sex partner,” she said. It was also more common in people who didn’t use condoms — both signs that suggested the infection was an S.T.I. Several other studies published over the years bolstered that theory, including more recent findings that bacteria in infected women tended to match the bacteria found on penises.