The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has noted more than 4,600 invasive group A streptococcus samples from 2023 – the highest Canada has seen.
Group A streptococcus, a bacteria that can cause illnesses like strep throat, can develop into acute infections that can lead to pneumonia, a flesh-eating disease, or toxic shock syndrome.
Some Canadians across the country that contracted the bacteria have developed infections requiring hospital treatment.
CTVNews.ca asked about their experiences with strep A, and what sort of symptoms occurred. The emailed responses have not been independently verified.
‘Amputation’ and ‘flesh-eating disease’
Lindsey Robinson has been dealing with flesh-eating disease, or Necrotizing fasciitis, a bacteria that destroys skin, fat and tissue, since April 2023.
The 37-year-old, mother of two from Kingston, Ont., said her day began normally; she did not feel sick.
After running a work errand, she felt nauseous and returned home. Initially, her temperature rose, but was not yet a fever. Several hours later, she spoke to a friend on the phone, when her health started deteriorating.
“Apparently I was talking nonsense and then passed out, so she called an ambulance,” Robinson told CTVNews.ca in an interview. “In between that I had also texted my husband and I said, ‘I think there’s something wrong … I need to go to the hospital.'”
Robinson begins questioning her recollection of events.
Later that day, medical personnel informed her that she went into surgery due to a flesh-eating disease. Hospital staff incubated her overnight and kept her in the ICU for five days.
When she woke up, there was a wound on the lower half of her breast.
“They have absolutely no idea why or how (it got there),” Robinson said. “I kept getting asked if I had gotten injured, if somebody had hit me in the chest.”
Robinson told doctors she had a small rash a few weeks prior in the same area, and that her entire family had been sick with strep for the month.
Robinson has been off work since April and a homecare nurse visits her daily. In November, the wound tested positive for strep and a new round of medication was needed .
At the beginning of January, Robinson’s wound was improving, however the progress receded over two days.
“The wound grew back to the same size as it was the day they sent me home,” she said. “So it’s like we’re right back to where we started.”
Robinson is not the only one dealing with infections leading to wounds from strep A.
Dan L., of Trent Hills, Ont., almost had his finger amputated after contracting strep A. Dan asked CTVNews.ca to omit his last name for privacy.
In September, the 62-year-old accidentally punctured the tip of his index finger with a screw while working on his deck.
“By all accounts, it was a minor puncture,” Dan told CTVNews.ca in an email. “I put pressure on it to stop the bleeding, washed it up, applied some Polysporin and a small bandage and was back to work.”
The bandage was removed two days following the incident after seeing signs of healing, but on Saturday morning, the wound worsened.
“In less than 24 hours my finger/hand went from normal to a grotesque and invasive painful infection,” he said. “From the initial injury to Saturday morning was just over 60 hours.”
Dan went to his local hospital and received an “aggressive treatment of antibiotics” and continued to return to the ER every six hours. By Saturday night, Dan said, the infection was “creeping” up his arm.
“When I asked my attending doctor if I was going to lose my finger, I didn’t get a positive response, only a look of grave concern,” Dan said. “It wasn’t until approximately 48 hours later that we knew we were dealing with Group A strep …The words ‘amputation’ and ‘flesh-eating disease’ were tossed about.”
By Tuesday morning, Dan was able to see another doctor who prescribed different antibiotics and followed up on the infection every 24 hours. On Thursday, Dan’s finger needed to be operated on to “clean up” the infection.
“It was a very scary 6 days. I am happy to say that my finger/hand is back to about 95 per cent (usage),” he said. “Dr. VanBrenk saved my finger, perhaps even more, from a very scary situation and an aggressive evasive strep A infection.”
‘Not just a sore throat’
A sore throat is among many other symptoms that Canadians have been reporting.
For Nichole Bishop’s son, the strep A infection presented as “significant” pain in his neck.
“Wednesday the 10th (of Jan.), he woke me up at midnight crying to say that the back of his neck hurt,” Bishop told CTVNews.ca in an interview.
Her son Roman, 10, had been tobogganing a few days prior and hit his head. She gave him Advil and he fell asleep sitting up due to the neck pain.
That day Bishop brought Roman to a primary care centre, which tested him for strep.
“I really didn’t think he had strep because when I think of strep, I think of sore throat,” Bishop said.
Both the nurse and Bishop were surprised when the test was positive. Due to the tobogganing incident and the neck pain, the primary care centre sent Bishop and Roman to the hospital for a CT scan.
“We’re waiting in emergency and the doctor comes back and brings us into a room,” Bishop said through tears. “He said ‘The tables have turned…he’s being admitted.'”
The CT scan showed fluid between Roman’s throat and spine from a strep infection.
“We would have never found it if he wouldn’t have bumped his head tobogganing,” Bishop said. “We would have just been sent home. So it was a total fluke that we caught it when we did. Nobody was concerned.”
Roman was hospitalized for five days before being discharged home, requiring medication every three hours. He was able to return to school on Monday, Bishop said.
Another parent, Jessica Di Battista, told CTVNews.ca in an email that strep symptoms may look like other illnesses.
Her 4-year-old daughter ended up in the hospital for 16 days after she noticed a fever and difficulty walking.
“The doctors discovered that her knees were very inflamed and her hemoglobin levels were so low that she almost needed a blood transfusion,” Di Battista said in an email.
Medical staff believed her daughter had rheumatic fever, an inflammatory disease that can be triggered by a strep infection, the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s website reads.
Her daughter needed a procedure to drain the fluid in her knees, followed by steroid injections to the site. For the next month, she took medication daily and a penicillin shot.
“It was a very scary time and I’m terrified she’s going to catch strep again from my 6-year-old,” Di Battista said. “If it was indeed rheumatic fever that she had last year, she could get deathly ill if she contracts strep again.”
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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