- A team of federal epidemiologists is in Saint John this
morning looking for the source of the flesh-eating infection that has killed
one person and made another seriously ill.
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- Nova Scotia reported a case yesterday, bringing the number
in the Atlantic region to three. An unidentified patient at South Shore
Regional Hospital in Bridgewater is recovering after being treated in late
April. The case is not believed to be related to the other two.
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- Officials with Atlantic Health Sciences Corp. in Saint
John have been looking for a common denominator in the case of a woman
who died of necrotizing fasciitis on April 30, the same day a patient was
diagnosed as having the potentially fatal disease at Saint John Regional
Hospital.
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- The Saint John hospital organization said yesterday the
second individual's condition has been upgraded to stable from serious.
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- Last night, ATV identified the Saint John victim as 37-year-old
Deborah Brigley, who was admitted to day surgery last Tuesday to have a
cyst removed from her back.
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- Her family told ATV that after the operation, Ms. Brigley
was released from hospital but they had to bring her back to the emergency
room twice because she was in pain and vomiting. They said doctors believed
she had influenza.
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- But on April 29, she was taken to hospital and died 26
hours later.
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- "I couldn't believe that it happened that fast,"
Ms. Brigley's husband, Eldon, told ATV.
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- "I had to take her down for surgery and I was signing
all these papers because they were going to remove this dead tissue and
give her blood."
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- The disease, which can begin in a cut or bruise, attacks
soft tissue and if not treated with antibiotics can cause death in 12 to
24 hours. It is fatal in about 30 per cent of the 90 to 200 cases that
occur in Canada every year. It is rare for a hospital to have two cases
on the same day.
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- In the Saint John case, five people were considered to
be at risk of contacting the disease, which can be spread through close
contact such as kissing. Yesterday, Atlantic Health Sciences Corp. said
two of the five had tested positive for strep A, a common bacterium that
can be a cause.
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- However, hospital spokeswoman Patricia Crowdis emphasized
that neither person is ill.
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- All the people who came in contact with the two individuals
are receiving antibiotics, and AHSC chief of staff James O'Brien said the
situation appears to be under control.
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- Samples of the bacteria cultures have been sent to the
Health Canada laboratory in Edmonton for genetic fingerprinting to see
whether the two cases are connected.
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- Ms. Crowdis said the only common element between the
woman who died and the second patient is that both received surgery at
the same Saint John hospital April 26-27.
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- She did not know how long it would take the epidemiological
team to complete its investigation.
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- Meanwhile, Nova Scotia public-health officials are investigating
two suspected cases of the rare Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. One of the patients
is in Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax and the other
in hospital in Yarmouth.
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- Public-health officials do not believe the cases are
connected.
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- Nova Scotia Health Minister Angus MacIsaac has ordered
an investigation into the way the Halifax hospital handled the first case.
As many as 26 patients could have come into contact with a medical instrument
used on the person suspected of contracting the disease.
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- But hospital officials have stressed that it is rarely
transmitted through surgical instruments.
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- About 30 cases of the disease, which affects the central
nervous system, are reported in Canada each year. It can occur spontaneously
in about 90 per cent of cases; fewer than 1 per cent of incidents occur
as result of hospital procedures.
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