Athlete's foot travels easily between spouses

Skin & Allergy News, Dec, 2006 by Timothy F. Kirn

SAN FRANCISCO -- Athlete's foot and onychomycosis can be spread among family members sharing common areas, but not easily, Mahmoud A. Ghannoum, Ph.D., said at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology.

In a study of 75 families with an index case of either athlete's foot or onychomycosis, there were 19 in which two family members were infected. And, of those 19, there appeared to have been spread from an index case in 8 families (42%), said Dr. Ghannoum, director of the Center for Medical Mycology at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland.

Transmission in 85% of the cases was in families in which the index individual had scaling. Most of the cases of spread involved a husband and wife. "Go home and look at your husband or wife. If they are scaling, they have to put on socks," Dr. Ghannoum said in an interview.