Bacterial infections can cause a powerful odor, as happened to the passenger plane

Last month, a Transavia Airlines flight had to divert after the irresistible odor of a man caused some passengers to vomit.It turned out, that pungent smell was caused by an infection that was rotting his bowels.

The 58-year-old man died less than a month later , Monday, June 25, a that his organs have failed.

Andrey Suchilin, a Russian guitarist, was on vacation to the Canary Islands in Spain when he contracted the infection. Before coming back, he visited a doctor, who told him that it was a typical beach infection and gave him antibiotics, reported CBS News. [27 Devastating Infectious Diseases]

But when his scent caused Suchilin 's plane to the Netherlands was redirected to Portugal, he was taken to the hospital, where his state' s is aggravated. Doctors diagnosed him with tissue necrosis or tissue death. He was put into a medically induced coma, but neither the surgeries nor the antibiotics seemed to improve his condition. He died later of an organ failure, reported CBS News.

This infection was probably caused by flesh-eating bacteria, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. In general, bacteria need oxygen to grow, Schaffner said. But these particular bacteria can work without easy access to oxygen, Schaffner said. So, if they penetrate deep into the body through the wounds, they can stay there, multiplying and destroying the muscles and other soft tissues.

As these bacteria infect the body, they cut off the blood supply of the tissues. By the time Suchilin boarded the plane, clearly "the infection had progressed, [and] substantial amounts of muscle tissue were … literally rotting," Schaffner told Live Science. And the rotten tissue inside the body can have a "pungent and aggressive odor".

According to Schaffner, infections with flesh-eating bacteria are "very unusual". But they can, from time to time, occur under certain circumstances: when a person has an injury or open sore near an aquatic environment.

With early diagnosis or treatment, people can usually be saved, Schaffner said. But sometimes knowing that such an infection occurs can be quite difficult, he added.

The first thing to do if you get a cut is to wash it and pay attention to any redness, swelling or discharge that may indicate a more serious infection Schaffner said. However, since these infections can be deep in the tissue, affecting the muscle, "they can be quite misleading."

He added that "what almost invariably accompanies these diseases is substantial pain," the pain that does not appear should be so intense based on how the cut appears on the surface. Then, you know something is going on deep inside the body, he says.

Treatment of these infections involves a combination of antibiotics and surgical procedures to remove affected tissues and thus prevent the spread of bacteria, Schaffner said. Sometimes patients can cope very well, but they may still have a major handicap because they have to cut a lot of tissue, says Schaffner.

"It is a terribly sad story of diagnosis and delay of treatment [s] very serious infection," he added

Originally published on Live Science . [ad_2]
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