11-year-old died of ‘flesh-magic bacterium’, that’s what necrotizing fasciitis is. The expert: “Mortality over 30%, it is the same germ that also causes scarlet fever”

The news of the eleven-year-old boy who, after injuring his ankle while exercising on the treadmill, in a short time he found himself admitted to intensive care only to sadly die shortly after. The causes? According to the doctors, the boy had contracted a streptococcus A infection and probably the pathology that led to his death Jesse Brown was the necrotizing fasciitis. “A really very rare disease, I will have observed one or two cases in 40 years of activity”, explains the professor Roberto Cauda, infectious disease specialist at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome. It is a bacterial disease caused by Group A beta hemolytic streptococcus, although other types may be responsible. It is the bacterium that mainly causes pharyngitis, scarlet fever and very rarely affects the skin”, continues Cauda. “The exceptional nature of the case is linked to the fact that the pathology that arose in a boy, while generally affecting in a more advanced age or in case of pre-existing pathologies, such as diabetes, cirrhosis, renal insufficiency. The toxins that are produced during the infection cause damage to the skin, subcutaneous region and muscles, leading to necrosis and tissue death. Mortality is very high, over 30%. Death arises because there is septicemia, organ failure”.