Bacterial Vaginosis Doesn’t Only Affect Women — New Research Changes What We Know
For decades, bacterial vaginosis (BV) has been taught and treated as a condition affecting women alone.
Bacterial vaginosis is caused by the bacteria, Gardnerella vaginalis.
Gardnerella vaginalis is part of the normal vaginal microbiome, but changes in vaginal pH, hormones, or sexual activity can allow this bacteria to overgrow. Overgrowth of Gardenella can cause symptoms of vaginal itching, irritation, grey discharge, and foul odor which is diagnosed as bacterial vaginosis or ( BV). Standard treatment has long focused on antibiotics prescribed reminding women, with the assumption that BV was not transmitted sexually.
Gardnerella vaginalis bacteria, a bacterial species associated with vaginosis.Credit...Moredun Scientific Ltd./Science Source
Despite treatment with antibiotics one persistent problem remained: high recurrence rates. Many women experienced BV repeatedly, despite appropriate treatment.
A Landmark Shift in Understanding
A recent landmark randomized controlled trial challenges this long-standing belief. The study examined whether treating both women diagnosed with BV and their male sexual partners could reduce recurrence rates.
Heterosexual women with active BV were divided into two groups:
One group received standard antibiotic treatment
The second group received treatment alongside their male partners, even though the partners were asymptomatic
The partner treatment worked so well that the study had to be halted prematurely so that all the women could be treated effectively.
What This Means for Women
This research strongly suggests that BV can be sexually transmitted and reinfected between partners, even when one partner has no symptoms. For women who struggle with recurrent BV, this finding is life changing and offers long-awaited validation.
As an Emergency Medicine physician, I have cared for countless women frustrated by the reoccurrence and discomfort associated with bacterial vaginosis. This study is exciting not only because it improves outcomes, but also reframes BV as a shared health issue.
Medical Care Has Fallen Short
This research will likely influence future clinical guidelines and has already started to change how physicians treat symptomatic bacterial vaginosis.
It also raises an important question: why did it take so long for medicine to seriously examine partner treatment in bacterial vaginosis? Women have reported recurrent symptoms for decades. The possibility that bacteria could be passed back and forth between sexual partners is not novel—it is biologically plausible and long understood in other infectious conditions.
This delay reflects a broader pattern in medicine, where conditions that primarily affect women have often been understudied and insufficiently scrutinized. The recent findings arrive amid a growing social and professional demand for greater investment in women’s health research.
As the medical community responds to this call for improvement, studies like this underscore the importance of questioning long-held assumptions and applying the same scientific rigor to women’s health that has historically been reserved for other areas of medicine.
Source
This Common Infection Was Thought to Affect Only Women. Now Doctors Know Better.
New York Times, December 31, 2025.
