From the Working Group on Infectious Diseases and Sepsis (GTEIS) of the Spanish Society of Intensive and Critical Medicine and Coronary Units (SEMICYUC) they respond to the doubts generated by the alert in the US of the increase in cases of the “flesh-eating” bacteria in Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico waters.
The tragic experience of the American model Jennifer Barlow has been one of the last and has caused a great impact. What came out of the event was the amputation of a leg after the infection caused “by a carnivorous bacterium while she was swimming in the ocean.”
David Andaluz, coordinator of the GTEIS of the SEMICYUC and Intensive Care Physician at the Complejo Asistencial Universitario de Palencia, qualifies that “it is important to know the scope of an infection, but it is equally important to know the possibilities and the context in which they can occur, as well as the tools we currently have to treat them and prevent them from getting worse”.
There are no ‘flesh-eating’ bacteria as such. What exists is a varied group of bacteria of different genera that, among other foci, can cause infections They affect the skin, the underlying tissues and, in the most severe cases, the fascia (the membrane that surrounds the muscle). In this last case, it is when we would talk about Necrotizing fasciitisthey explain from the GTEIS.
The process generally begins in the skin, from a gateway such as a wound or local trauma. The bacteria proliferate, producing toxins and enzymes that favor the spread of the infection in depth, generating necrosis of the underlying tissues and fascia, as well as the formation of clots in the microvessels.