Flesh-Eating Illness Strikes Three Children Health Officials Stress Incidences Of Rare Disease Not An Epidemic

Three children have been treated for so-called flesh-eating disease at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital in the last month, a spokesman said.

But health experts and hospital officials insist there is no outbreak of the illness in the Vancouver area despite six cases of the rare disease diagnosed in suburban Langley in the last eight months.

Dr. Navid Dehghani, a pediatric resident who specializes in the disease and saw two of the children, said Wednesday three cases in one month at the Children’s Hospital is not unusual.

It means doctors are recognizing the rare disease, necrotizing fasciitis, quickly and transferring the children to Children’s Hospital where there is a surgeon who is expert in treating it, he said.

“It doesn’t mean the Vancouver community is suffering from an epidemic. It means doctors are more aware,” he said. “It’s very important for people not to get worried.”

Dehghani said all of the children are doing well, because their doctors transferred them so promptly.

During a news conference Wednesday, health officials said the six Langley cases are a random grouping and there is no epidemic outbreak of the ailment, in which bacteria burn or consume skin, fat and muscle tissue.

“The risk in Langley is no greater than for anyone else in the general public in B.C.,” said Dr. Robert Strang of the South Fraser Health Region.

The disease normally occurs at the rate of one case per 1.3 million in British Columbia, but it is now four per 100,000 in Langley.

Dr. Allison McGeer of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, an expert on the disease, said the cases in Langley represent coincidence, not an outbreak.

“We’ve seen with studies that these apparent blips happen,” McGeer said.