Flesh eating disease has killed three

From the NorthernTerritory News, 2 March 2007, By FLORA LIVERIS.

THREE people have died after contracting a rare flesh-eating disease in the Territory.

 Two of them were tourists who became ill after fishing near Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The third was a 19-year-old local girl who had been swimming in a coastal tidal creek.

All three had other health problems.

The disease, necrotising fasciitis, is contracted through marine bacteria, which gets in through cuts in the skin and poisons the blood stream.

Survivors often have to have limbs amputated.

Menzies School of Health Research professor Bart Currie announced yesterday an investigation into what caused the vibrio bacteria to proliferate near Borroloola.

The world’s biggest lead and zinc mine is close to the township.

Professor Currie said the mine and the infections were not linked.

“It is a metal rich area and there are in the environment naturally high levels of metal,” he said.

McArthur River Mining also dismissed suggestions that the operation was responsible for the bacteria.

“The vibrio is a naturally occurring organism,” general manager Brian Hearne said.

“No one knows what is causing the unusual rate of infections in this region.

“But we do know categorically there is no evidence of heavy metal pollution by the mine.”

The deaths occurred between July 2000 an October 2005.

Northern Land Council chief executive Norman Fry said the failure to warn residents in the region of the bacteria was an “absolute disgrace”.

The NT Government’s chief health officer Tarun Weeramanthri said flyers had been put up in Borroloola.

“We have to tell people what the risk is and what precautions they should take without giving a message that no one should go fishing or launch their boats and get their feet wet,” he said.

An article published in a medical journal linked high levels of zinc in the McArthur River and an increase in the flesh-eating bacteria.

The first case to be recorded in the Territory was in 1988 in Darwin.

http://www.ntnews.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,21311317%255E13569,00.html

NT Government slow to respond to flesh-eating bacteria

Too little, too late Clare. Too busy approving a mine to address a significant health issue.

Govt defends response to flesh-eating bacteria cases (ABC)
The Northern Territory’s Health Department is adamant its response to a cluster of deaths from flesh-eating bacteria was not affected by the presence of a controversial mine nearby.

Three people have died and another had his foot amputated after being infected with the vibrio bacteria in waters near Borroloola, south-east of Darwin, since 2000.

It is the same area as a major zinc mine and a British Medical Journal report suggests heavy metal levels in the water could be affecting the bacteria levels.

The Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory’s gulf country say they have not been told about the risk.

The head of Borroloola’s Mubuji Aboriginal resource centre says the first the community knew of the deaths from vibrio bacteria was when they heard it on the news this morning.

“It’s a shock, it’s not communication that I see, especially health-wise,” he said.

He says no one has told the local Aboriginal population about the risk of going in the water or eating raw seafood.

The territory’s chief health officer Tarun Weeramanthri says the department only recently realised the problem was serious.

“After the fourth case we definitely knew that there was an issue that needed to be dealt with,” he said.

The Territory’s Chief Minister says the flesh-eating bacteria occurs naturally.

Clare Martin says information that educates people on how to manage their lives around the bacteria has been issued.

“I know that there is a campaign being run,” she said.

“I don’t know how widespread or how effective it is, but if it’s not effective enough then we need to do something.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1860798.htm