Why deadly, invasive strep A infections are surging in Canada and beyond
CBC
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When Colin Hunter got a sore throat and a fever last spring, he didn't think much of it.
A week later, after packing and unpacking cardboard boxes, the middle finger of his right hand started to feel a bit irritated. By mid-afternoon, it was swollen. And by early evening, just hours later, it was clear something was very, very wrong.
"It went from nothing to, by about 5 p.m., a big plump grape on the end of my finger, turning black, swollen around the fingernail on all sides, and throbbing with each heartbeat," Hunter recalled. "That's when I went to the emergency room."
Physicians at his local hospital feared it was a case of necrotizing fasciitis, also known as flesh-eating disease. So they cut open his finger, ran some tests and came back with a surprising diagnosis: He had a strep A infection.
Hunter had never heard of such a thing in someone's hand. Then he realized his prior throat pain and fever might have been an undiagnosed case of strep throat — and that the bacteria could have gotten inside his finger through something as small as a paper cut.
The 47-year-old Guelph, Ont., resident ended up spending five days on intravenous antibiotics. During his hospital stay, physicians said the infection was likely spreading through his bloodstream, marking the route along Hunter's arm with a black marker.
He fully recovered after treatment in the hospital and another round of antibiotics at home. But what haunts Hunter now is what would have happened if he hadn't sought medical help as soon as he did.
"I might not have kept my finger," he told CBC News. "Or my life."
Fast-spreading and potentially deadly strep infections — known as invasive group A strep, or iGAS — are on the rise in Canada, hitting a new high in 2023, as CBC News first reported last week.
Provinces have also reported dozens of deaths in just the last few months, including at least 10 children across Ontario and B.C. Other countries, such as the U.K. and Japan, have also reported notable surges.
The big question is: Why? Why are we seeing a spike in these serious infections, both in Canada and abroad?
Scientists say there's no single smoking gun, but rather a complex set of factors, some of which surfaced even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We don't fully understand that, at this point," said Dr. Jennifer Guthrie, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Western University in London, Ont. "And it's probably become more pressing to understand that recently with the rise."
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