After contracting flesh-eating disease, these women are questioning Public Health's response

Two women in the Yarmouth area are ques‐ tioning the response by Public Health after they say invasive group A strep infections left them in hos‐ pital fighting flesh-eating disease.

The episode raises ques‐ tions about public-health messaging in the age of soci‐ al media, according to one expert.

Kelly Doucet, who lives in Hebron, N.S., said she thought she had the flu when her ordeal began last month. But she said her mother en‐ couraged her to go to Yarmouth Regional Hospital after hearing about a couple in the area who died as a re‐ sult of invasive group A strep.

"I knew that it was in the province," she said. "I wasn't really aware of the symp‐ toms, signs or severity of what it was."

Doucet said she needed surgery to treat flesh-eating disease as a result of the Strep A infection. And while the Yarmouth hospital team was excellent, she said, Pub‐ lic Heath's response has been a disappointment.

"I got more information off of the internet than when [Public Health was] calling me in my hospital bed," she said.

Her grandson, who had stayed with Doucet in the days prior to her illness, was treated with a preventive an‐ tibiotic by Public Health, she said. But her daughter, who is the boy's mother and did not stay with Doucet, re‐ ceived no antibiotics and wound up in hospital with what she believes was a com‐ plication from a strep infec‐ tion.

"When I was laying in my bed [after] being cut open, my daughter was going to the outpatients," Doucet said, "that was the worst 24 hours in my life."

Second case of flesheating disease

Crystal Dillon, who lives in Brooklyn, N.S., said her household wasn't contacted after she was also hospital‐ ized and diagnosed with flesh-eating disease as a re‐ sult of an invasive group A strep infection.

She said there was a long wait when she visited the Yarmouth Regional Hospital on April 8 because the emer‐ gency departments in Shel‐ burne and Digby were closed at that time.

"After seven hours I left. I couldn't sit anymore," said Dillon, who returned to the hospital two days later, at which point she received surgery.

There should have also been more information com‐ municated to the community about invasive strep infec‐ tions in the community, she said.

"People should have at least been given information so that it wasn't scary for them to hear that I had this."

Viral social media post

An anonymous Facebook message, purportedly written by a nurse, was posted more than a week after Doucet and Dillon arrived in hospital. It claimed there were five ac‐ tive cases of flesh-eating dis‐ ease at the hospital. And it was shared by thousands of users.

Nova Scotia Health subse‐ quently said online claims about flesh-eating disease in the Yarmouth area were inac‐ curate, and a spokesperson for the department said the claims had caused "unneces‐ sary public concern."

But Doucet and Dillon said the post provided valu‐ able information about the level of infection in the com‐ munity.

Frustration with the health-care system is likely part of the reason why the post spread widely, according to Robert Huish, an associate professor of international de‐ velopment studies at Dal‐ housie University.

"That rumour mill be‐ comes a vent for frustration on the way a public policy is acting right now," he said.

Public health messages about COVID-19 were well re‐ ceived by most in Nova Scotia during the pandemic, he said, but health officials can always do better by en‐ suring messages are inclu‐ sive and understandable.

"The architecture of public health now is to try to figure out ways to get ahead of the rumours and the scuttlebutt through social media," said Huish.

Infections were commu‐ nicated appropriately

Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief medical of‐ ficer of health, said Nova Sco‐ tians should look at the source of information shared on social media.

He said there is a lack of trust in science and public health, particularly since the pandemic.

"We have to work with the general public to help them understand that there's a lot of misinformation," he said, "and some of it is deliberate disinformation on social media."

Strang said the "slightly in‐ creased" rates of invasive group A strep have been communicated appropriately.

As of May 2, Nova Scotia Health had reported 61 cases of invasive group A strep, and about half of those were classified as severe infec‐ tions. There have been 12 deaths across the province.

Invasive group A strep

Invasive group A strep infec‐ tions happen when usually harmless strep bacteria in‐ vades parts of the body that it's not normally found in. This can lead to complica‐ tions like flesh-eating dis‐ ease, meningitis and even death.

"There's nothing to sug‐ gest that there's any in‐ creased concern around in‐ vasive group A strep in the Yarmouth area then there is anywhere in the rest of Nova Scotia," Strang said.

He also said that while he could not comment on indi‐ vidual cases, there are clear protocols that dictate when Public Health can provide an‐ tibiotics to prevent infection.

Nova Scotia Heath Minis‐ ter Michelle Thompson said the department is constantly trying to provide accurate in‐ formation in a timely fashion.

"Sometimes that informa‐ tion is well out in front of any of the communications teams or the media for ex‐ ample," said Thompson. "Not everything we read on social media is true, but it is imme‐ diate."

Huish said that dispelling misinformation or disinfor‐ mation and rebuilding trust is vital before another publichealth emergency hits.

"So if there is a need to try to co-ordinate trust and buyin for another emergency down the road, it's little mo‐ ments like that that will be a real hindrance going for‐ ward," he said.

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