'Epidemic' feared after flesh eating bacteria eats away Melbourne teen's knee
WARNING: DISTRESSING IMAGES: A Melbourne school girl is pressuring the government to investigate a flesh-eating disease usually only common to third-world countries, after exposure to the infection turned her knee into a huge festering ulcer.
Mycobacterium Ulcerans is becoming rampant in Victoria, with reports of the infection having more than doubled, with 240 new cases in the past 12 months.
The disease, also known as the Bairnsdale Ulcer, is mostly found in African countries like Uganda, Nigeria and Liberia.
In Victoria, its first instance was at Bairnsdale in East Gippsland in 1948, but it has recently migrated from the Bellarine Peninsula to the Mornington Peninsula - and it is spreading rapidly.
Ella Crofts, 13, from Tyabb, south-east of the city, contracted the tropical infection in April, which caused her skin to begin decomposing. She began to walk with a limp, and later with crutches.
Six months after heavy antibiotics and three operations to clean out the dead tissue, the teen is still trying to recover and regain full use of her leg.
“I started feeling pain in my knee in early April,” Ella documented on her Change.org petition.
“Slowly it got worse, with my knee becoming swollen and inflamed, until one day, the skin started breaking down.
“I’ve had about three months of strong antibiotics, the sort that someone would use if they had tuberculosis,” she said.
“I’ve had six months of quality medical care and still have not recovered.”
Ella is concerned about the alarming rate of the infection coming form the Mornington Peninsula, with more than 40 new cases in the past month alone.
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She hopes a petition to Health Minister Greg Hunt, who also happens to be her local MP, will convince the government to investigate.
The Change.org petition, calling for research into the infection’s rapid spread across the state, has already received more than 7000 signatures in just six days.
“Why are the numbers in Victoria increasing so rapidly? Why is it moving?” she asked.
“Why is a disease that’s found in tropical Africa, also found in temperate Victoria? We don’t even know how it’s spread.”
Ella hoped the research might help prevent “an epidemic”.
