AU: Mysterious flesh-eating ulcer cases soar on Mornington Peninsula

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/m...-in-mornington-peninsula-20170920-gyl2kf.html



September 21 2017 - 9:28AM
Mysterious flesh-eating ulcer cases soar on Mornington Peninsula
Liam Mannix, Melissa Cunningham
WARNING: Graphic images

When Ella Crofts began feeling a dull ache in her right knee, the last thing she imagined was that a flesh-eating ulcer was chewing through her skin.

"I started feeling pain in my knee in early April," the 13-year-old said. "Slowly, it got worse as my knee became swollen and inflamed until one day the skin started breaking down and I started to see an open wound that just kept getting bigger and bigger."

Ella was an otherwise active and healthy teenager from Tyabb when she was struck down with mycobacterium ulcerans (otherwise known as Buruli ulcer) in April...

 

[Pathfinder]

4:11pm, Sep 21, 2017 Updated: 4h ago

Mysterious flesh-eating ulcer a ?worsening epidemic?

James Ried
Reporter

In early March, Melbourne schoolboy Gus Charles, 12, woke with a mosquito bite on his knee. Tiny at first, ?It got bigger and bigger then turned into a massive graze,? says his mother Sally Ralph-Charles.

Gus was taken to the GP three times, visited a hospital emergency department and saw a plastic surgeon before being diagnosed with mycobacterium ulcerans ? a flesh-eating ulcer now plaguing Victoria in ?epidemic? proportions.
...
Gus is just one of 159 recorded cases to contract Buruli ulcer this year, compared to 102 for the same period in 2016.

?The cases are rapidly increasing, we are nearly 50 per cent up on last year, and last year was already a record year by 70 per cent from the previous year,? Mr O?Brien said.
...
And as the number of cases continues to rise, it is largely unknown how the ulcer is contracted.

?There?s lots of theories but there?s no definite proof, so it?s very hard to put a halt to a worsening epidemic if you don?t actually know for sure how people are getting it in the first place,? Mr O?Brien said.

He said the theory is that the disease can be found in the soil and gets under your skin through an existing wound, or through a mosquito bite.
...

http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2017/09/21/flesh-eating-ulcer-epidemic/