Four months after Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwest Florida, state health officials are again warning people to stay out of beach water, but this time their alert also mentions sand.
The unprecedented health advisory from the Florida Department of Health in Lee County comes as testing continues to find that Ian fueled years of pollution on land, wrecked boats filled with gas and oil in bays and beaches and left behind shards of metal, glass. and other hazardous waste along the coastline.
Notable is the health department’s wholesale abandonment of the milder wording typically found in water quality advisories. Normally, there is a certain kind of understatement inherent in beach advice so as not to scare away tourists.
“Swimming is not recommended. You should assume that contact with the water may pose an increased risk of illness or disease,” Lee County health officials wrote. “As a result of Hurricane Ian, debris remains on area beaches, including debris buried under shallow sand. and not immediately apparent.”
Ian dropped more than a foot of rain and a storm surge of up to 14 feet pushed ashore. The stormwater was filled with the debris of human life: nitrogen-rich manure, human waste from damaged septic systems, animal feces, microplastics and other chemicals from face masks or discarded cigarette butts, oil and rubber. from the streets, soot and dirt. from buildings and signs and so on, hour after hour, as the slow storm rolled through the region.
As the hurricane moved inland, all that water returned to the Gulf of Mexico, washing across streets and parking lots, yards and beaches.
Flesh-eating bacteria
The most dreaded disease growing up since Ian is a bacterial infection harmful vibrio, which can lead to necrotizing fasciitis, a serious infection in which the flesh around an open wound dies.
It is better known to the public as flesh-eating disease.
The good news is that it is extremely rare. The bad news is everything else about it.
Vibrio is a bacterium that is endemic to background concentrations in warm waters such as the Gulf, particularly in brackish areas where freshwater streams and estuaries meet the ocean. There were no cases of cannibalism in Lee County in 2020; last year there were at least 28.
Vibrio it most commonly enters a person’s bloodstream by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, but it can also enter the body through a minute scratch or even a scratch from shaving.
Death from necrotizing fasciitis is very painful at first. And quickly. A person with a pre-existing condition such as cirrhosis or high blood pressure can go from infection to death within 72 hours. The elderly are also at risk.
About 20 percent will die. Many of those who live will have large tooth stains or lose a limb.
First a small red spot appears and begins to swell accompanied by pain very disproportionate to the small lesion. Within hours, the small red spot has grown much larger and the damage begins as the skin, muscle and connective tissue begin to die.
Infected tissue darkens from red to purple to blue to black. With the onset of gangrene, the severe pain goes away because the nerves in the remaining skin are destroyed, but fever and fatigue take over and the skin blisters.
Untreated, sepsis, organ failure and death can follow.
Victims who require medical treatment quickly enough to live will often have lost so much muscle, muscle and fat that they require intensive care and limb amputation.
Survivors will often look like they have suffered third-degree burns in the affected area because of all the tissue that had to be cut away or was lost to the infection.
About 80 percent of infections occur between May and October when water temperatures are warmest.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 80,000 Vibrio disease and 100 deaths in the country every year. Florida health department records show 74 people have been caught Vibrio and 14 died from it. Both agencies acknowledge that their number is likely an underestimate due to misdiagnosis and the speed with which the disease progresses.
Pollution that Hurricane Ian washed into the water may be fueling more cases. Lee County health officials recorded no cases of necrotizing fasciitis in 2020, five infections two years ago that resulted in one death and 28 infections last year with eight deaths.
In Collier County, health officials reported no infections in 2021 and three last year, while reporting no deaths. However, a Michigan man helping a friend recover from Ian in Naples died of a flesh-eating bacterial infection picked up near the friend’s home a month after the storm.
Healthy attitude
The Florida Department of Health recommends the following measures to avoid flesh-eating bacteria:
- Follow basic hygiene. Always wash your hands with soap and water before eating and after using the toilet.
- If you have open cuts or wounds exposed to seawater or brackish water, keep them as clean as possible by washing with soap and disinfected or boiled water then cooled or commercial bottled water.
- Apply antibiotic cream to reduce the risk of infection.
- After assisting in cleanup activities and after handling items contaminated by sewage, wash hands with soap and water.
- If a wound or sore develops redness, swelling, or drainage, see a doctor immediately.
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