Six patients have been treated at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha for necrotizing fasciitis, the flesh-eating bacteria.
The Omaha World-Herald reports the medical center has treated the six in the last month, the highest number of patients with the condition ever treated there in such a short period of time, according to Dr. Jeff Cooper, medical director of the hospital hyperbaric oxygen unit.
All the patients are reported to be doing well.
Cooper tells the newspaper, “It’s a very scary disease.”
It can be deadly. Up to 40% of the patients who contract the bacteria die. Many need to have limbs amputated to keep the disease from spreading.
A story that has gained national attention has raised awareness of the disease. 24-year-old Aimee Copeland from Georgia contracted the disease after suffering a gash to her leg May 1st when she fell from a homemade zip line over a river.







