Strep Bacteria Kills 2
By: Allison Morrison
Updated: January 9, 2009
A severe strain of strep throat is being blamed for the death of two people in Curry County, New Mexico.
In just one week, three residents were admitted to the Plains Regional Medical Center in Clovis.
Premiere Healthcare Nurse Practioner T.J. Jones says he sees at least one case of strep each day in Lubbock.
He says if you have a sore throat, it's important not to ignore it.
"The streptococcal infection, if left unattended, can go down and get in your lungs and you can get what we call strep pumonia or it can go down and get on your heart and cause you symptoms of heart failure and sometimes it can get on your kidney and cause you to have kidney failure," Jones says.
He says usually patients who die from strep throat have some kind of immune deficiency prior to contracting the bacteria.
