Posted on 07/22/2009 4:55:01 AM PDT by PghBaldy
Chloe Buckley, the six-year-old girl who reportedly died of swine flu last week, was actually a victim of tonsillitis according to the results of a post mortem examination.
Chloe, who was confirmed to have swine flu, was described as "healthy" before she died on 9 July in West London. Although tonsillitis was what caused the death, health officials stressed that swine flu may have been a contributing factor.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.co.uk ...
Life is fragile.
‘Swine flu victim’ Chloe Buckley, 6, died from septic shock following tonsillitis- ...Chloe’s GP had diagnosed her with tonsillitis the day before she died and sent her home.
S...
Dr Simon Tanner, regional director of public health for London, said: “Following the death of six-year-old Chloe Buckley on July 9, a post mortem examination has concluded that Chloe died of septic shock as a result of a tonsillitis infection caused by the streptococcus A bacterium. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/5879462/Swine-flu-victim-Chloe-Buckley-6-died-from-septic-shock-following-tonsillitis.html
Poor child. RIP.
NHS might have been a complicating factor.
I suppose if you also get govt-run deathcare, kids die from common illnesses- like tonsillitis.
Being put on a six month waiting list for emergency care could contribute.
Wow, the citizens of the UK should feel so much better. Their children are DYING OF TONSILLITIS!
How many kids died in the US last year from tonsillitis?
Coming so to a nation near you.
Yet on DailyKos they are saying every day how the UK healthcare system is superior to ours. Their claim to fame? That the UN ranks our system 36th in the world. THE UN!
According to the published stats from the US CDC the answer for the number of deaths in the USA due to Gp A Streptococcus is between 1000 - 1800 as of 2008 data. As far as I could see this isn’t broken down based on age group. No doubt some deaths will have been in children.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/Groupastreptococcal_g.htm
Wow. - The citizens of the USA should feel so much better too.
We have a friend that passed away Sunday morning - he came home from work Friday with a severe cold. The reports are his lungs became septic and he died that fast.
His blood has been sent to the CDC to confirm or rule out Swine Flu. He worked in a hospital.
Tonsillitis can definitely kill, by obstructing the airways, or by the infection spreading. I got bad tonsillitis as a young child living in a third world country where my diplomat father was posted. I was flown out to Germany in a hurry to get them out, since I was barely able to breathe at all.
Why wasn’t this child saved.
Oh wait, USA - they don’t care if you can’t afford it - ah, never mind
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1096340/posts
Isn’t socialized medicine wonderful? Her parents didn’t have to pay for that visit to the brilliant GP. < /s>
RIP little girl. Somewhere a hate filled leftist is smiling. I can contain my anger for the time being.
There are lots of ways strep A can kill. Depending on the nature of the infection and how advanced it is when medical attention is first sought, there may be no way to save the patient. But this was a child who had just been to a doctor the day before and been sent home. If she’d been immediately hospitalized and put on IV antibiotics, it’s very unlikely she’d be dead now.
She would have needed powerful antibiotics to clear up the tonsillitis BEFORE the tonsils were removed. I guess there is a waiting list for antibiotics there too.
There is precious little information, but there are a a few possibilities of what happened.
I am assuming here that the girl indeed had strep throat. Many doctors simply look at a person’s throat, decide based on appearance that it is strep, and then prescribe an antibiotic without testing for the bacteria that causes strep throat. However, apearance is a very unreliable way to diagnose strep throat...the same appearance can be achieved by a viral infection, for which no antibiotic would be helpful, or by infection with a different bacteria. So the first possibility is that the girl never had strep throat to begin with, and had a different bacterial infection that would not be treated by the antibiotics generally prescribed for strep throat.
Another possibility is that the girl never had a bacterial infection of the throat at all, but developed a bacterial sepsis and septic shock as a complication of the influenza virus infection.
However, let’s say that the girl did indeed have strep throat. Streptococcus pyogenes, the bacteria that causes strep throat, is uniquely sensitive to penicillin...there has not been any resisitance to penicillin drungs noted to date by this bacteria. If the girl was treated properly, then she may not have been given her antibiotic appropriately, which would have led to an untreated infection and an increased possibility of sepsis in the environment of a concurrent influenza infection.
It is also possible that none of the above theories are correct, but I find it very hard for an appropriately diagnosed and treated case of strep throat to lead to overwhelming sepsis after the patient has already been on the correct antibiotic for a couple of days.
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