A rare but horrific kind of infection might be on the rise.
All three women were hospitalized, and one died as a result.
While the appearance of this infection might resemble freshly-chewed flesh, the bacteria arent actually eating it away.
Group A Streptococcus bacteria, seen above, are the most common cause of necrotizing fasciitis.© National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health via Flickr
Once this destruction starts, it can rapidly spread and trigger other life-threatening complications like sepsis.
People can die from necrotizing fasciitis inas little as 12 hoursafter symptoms begin.
In two of the cases, the women were diagnosed with vulvar necrotizing fasciitis in the emergency room.
In the third, the woman developed it as a complication from an infected surgical wound.
The other two women survived their ordeal, though not without serious difficulty.
These cases are only part of a worrying pattern that the doctors have noticed.
And theyre not the only ones spotting an overall rise in flesh-eating infections.
Several countries in Europe, including the UK, havealso reporteda recent increase in GAS infections.
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