WebMD Medical News Daniel J. DeNoon Louise Chang, MD May 14,
2012 -- Infection with flesh-eating bacteria, a condition called
called necrotizing fasciitis, has struck Aimee Copeland, a
24-year-old Georgia student who reportedly also has lupus. It's
estimated that 5 million people worldwide, including 1.5 million
Americans, have lupus. Are they at risk of the same life-
threatening infection? WebMD asked Chaim Putterman, MD, chief of
rheumatology at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein
College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y. With colleagues Mohammad
Kamran, MD, and Jane Wachs, MD, Putterman recently reported
necrotizing fasciitis in eight of the 449 lupus patients treated
at their hospital from 1996 through 2007. The bacteria that
cause necrotizing fasciitis really do eat flesh. The bacteria
eat away at the tissues under the skin and spread rapidly.
There's no single kind of flesh-eating bacteria. The drug-
resistant staph germ called MRSA causes a particularly
difficult-to-treat form, but many other bac