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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Melissa Davey Medical editor

Cases of flesh-eating invasive strep A bacteria surge in Australian children

Nineteen-month-old Jordan has just recovered from severe strep A after a five-week stint in hospital
‘They weren’t sure if he was going to make it’: invasive strep A left Jordan in Melbourne’s Royal Children’s hospital for almost five weeks. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian

It took just two days for one-year-old Jordan Sutherland to go from experiencing clinginess and a slight temperature to being in intensive care after surgery to remove flesh-eating bacteria from his neck, which had “swollen from ear to ear”, his mother recalls.

Jordan would not leave the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne for almost five weeks, after an infection with the common strep A bacteria developed into a disease known as “invasive strep A”.

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