As Japan battles ‘flesh eating’ infection outbreak, health authorities attempt to soothe visitors’ jitters

Global media coverage of the outbreak has highlighted a spike in the number of cases of the rare but frequently deadly bacterial infection, highlighting an apparent fatality rate of 30 per cent.

A health ministry official stressed that travellers concerned about contracting STSS need not cancel their plans to visit Japan, telling the Asahi newspaper that the frequent washing of hands, use of a face mask and keeping any open wounds clean should be sufficient to prevent infection.

From the start of the year to March 10, Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) recorded 474 STSS cases, compared with 941 in the whole of last year. The infection has also spread across the nation, with cases reported in 45 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, NIID said.

“There are still many unknown factors regarding the mechanisms behind fulminant [severe and sudden] forms of streptococcus, and we are not at the stage where we can explain them,” the institute said.

A risk assessment issued by the NIID on March 29 identified STSS’ symptoms as including liver failure, renal failure, acute respiratory distress syndrome, soft-tissue inflammation, rashes and effects on the central nervous system.

“It is becoming a serious problem, but there are still many things that we do not know,” said Kazuhiro Tateda, president of the Japan Association of Infectious Diseases and a member of the panel that advised the government during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We know that it is a variant of the strain that was spreading in the UK, but we do not know how or when it came to Japan,” he told This Week in Asia.

Health experts understand STSS typically spreads in the same way as other bacteria, primarily through skin contact, but treatment is proving challenging,