Harvey flooding leads to infection

Flesh-eating bacteria proves fatal to woman, 77

A Texas woman died earlier this month after contracting a flesh-eating infection from floodwaters brought by Hurricane Harvey, according to health officials in Houston.

The Houston Chronicle reported that Nancy Reed, 77, of Houston, contracted a dangerous bacterial skin infection after she fell into dirty floodwater in her son’s home, breaking and cutting open her arm.

The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences said that Reed died Sept. 15 of necrotizing fasciitis, “complicating blunt trauma of an upper extremity.” Her death marks the 36th fatality in the United States that has been connected to Hurricane Harvey, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“It’s tragic,” David Persse, a physician and director of Houston’s EMS and Public Health Authority, told the newspaper earlier this week. “This is one of the things we’d been worrying about once the flooding began, that something like this might occur.”

The infection that killed her, necrotizing fasciitis, spreads swiftly, destroying the body’s soft tissues, and soon after, can lead to death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although necrotizing

fasciitis is believed to be most often caused by the bacterium group A Streptococcus, other bacteria can also lead to the infection, including Klebsiella, Clostridium, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Aeromonas hydrophila, according to the CDC. The CDC reported that most infections caused by group A strep are easy to treat, “but in cases of necrotizing fasciitis, bacteria spread quickly once they enter the body,” infecting the fascia, or “connective tissue that surround muscles, nerves, fat, and blood vessels.”

Then the toxins from the bacteria kill the body’s tissues.

The CDC estimates that there are about 700 to 1,100 cases of necrotizing fasciitis caused by group A strep each year in the U.S.