New ‘Ringworm’ Outbreak Turns Minnesota Into America’s STD Fungus Hotspot

There are plenty of good reasons to stay out of Minnesota in February….ice, snow, anti-ICE protests, Somali fraudsters, and the occasional moose taking up an entire highway lane.

But this year, locals have added one more to the list: a fungal infection known as TMVII, currently turning the Twin Cities into ground zero for the nation’s largest known outbreak of a sexually transmitted skin fungus. Health officials are calling this sexually transmitted ringworm infection “serious but treatable.”

Minnesota is in the midst of what state health officials call the nation’s “largest known outbreak” of TMVII, a sexually transmitted fungal skin infection that can cause severe ringworm.

TMVII, or trichophyton mentagrophytes genotype VII, is the only known fungal-based sexually transmitted disease, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, and it’s treatable with oral antifungals...