Baby saved from flesh-eating bug
Doctors from Dubai health care group use innovative method to cure rare skin infection
Amultidisciplinary team of doctors and surgeons at a Dubai-based health care group saved a newborn from a deadly flesh-eating bug in the Indian city of Bengaluru.
The baby girl, barely 25 days old, from the Indian state of Jharkhand, was brought to the Aster CMI Hospital in Bengaluru with a rare skin infection called necrotising fasciitis, caused by the superbug methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is fatal in many cases.
A team of doctors comprising Dr Sudheer K.A., consultant neonatologist; Dr Madhusudan G., lead consultant plastic surgeon; Dr Chetan Ginigeri, consultant Paediatric Intensive Care Unit and Dr Shilpa V., senior specialist at Department of Paediatrics, ensured the child’s recovery and survival.
Within five days of her birth, the baby developed pus-filled vesicles on the right side of her chest. Although she was administered antibiotics, her condition worsened with the infection eating away her skin and muscles. The infection entered her bloodstream causing high-grade fever, poor feeding, and respiratory distress. The child was then rushed to Aster CMI Hospital.
Dr Sudheer K.A. said: “After initial assessment, we realised that the child was severely septic and the chest was being rapidly eaten away. We had to quickly address three issues — control blood stream infection, debride and remove dead skin and flesh thereby controlling the source, and optimise wound care so that the baby girl did not have a gaping defect and scar over her chest wall.”
The child was given appropriate antibiotics, the dead skin was debrided and wounds were treated with vacuum-assisted closure. She later underwent a skin graft from her right thigh.
Dr Ginigeri said: “As her parents were financially underprivileged we made use of a crowd-funding platform to raise Rs700,000 [around Dh36,000]. Without this concerted assistance, the infant could have succumbed to her deadly infection.”