A Wyoming (USA) dog has died of necrotizing fasciitis (more popularly and dramatically known as "flesh-eating disease"). This isn’t unheard of in dogs, but it’s a pretty rare disease. The six-year-old Great Dane’s infection apparently raised some concern because of the diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis in three people in the area. However, there is no known connection between the dog and the human cases.

While not anything new, the case is noteworthy for a few reasons, not the least of which is the high mortality rate associated with this disease. A few different types of bacteria can cause "flesh-eating disease," but streptococci are most common. The news reports say the dog had Group A strep, which is quite surprising and raises a lot of questions, such as:

  • Was it really Group A strep? Most of these infections in dogs are caused by a related bug, Streptococcus canis, which is a Group G strep. Group A strep is essentially unheard of in dogs and I have to wonder whether the bacterium was misidentified by the lab or the reporting is inaccurate.
  • If it actually was Group A strep, what’s the public health concern? Group A strep is a common bug in people (the one that causes strep throat) but invasive infections like necrotizing fasciitis are a much bigger concern, and potential dog-human transmission would have to be considered.
  • If this was Group A strep, are public health authorities taking the same steps was they would in response to finding Group A strep necrotizing fasciitis in a human in the household (such as the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Invasive Group A Streptococcal Disease?) This would make sense to me.
  • If this was really Group G strep (the most likely scenario), did the dog receive a fluoroquinolone antibiotic before the infection set in? It doesn’t sound like that was the case from the article, but knowing for sure would be interesting. Most cases of Group G strep necrotizing fasciitis that we see are associated with enrofloxacin treatment of an initially mild infection, since this drug can induce increased virulence in Group G strep.

Regardless of whether it was Group A or Group G strep, it’s an unfortunate situation for the dog and the family, but people shouldn’t be too concerned because this is a very rare, sporadic disease in dogs and one that has not been linked to any risk to other species.