Soldiers on the front lines, such as in the Ukraine war, have to wait for long periods of time for help, as evacuation and, as a result, emergency medical care are completely impossible. This leaves you at risk of contracting a dangerous disease that starts with dead tissue and forms gas bubbles under the skin.
What looks like a horror story from an ancient war is becoming reality in Ukraine. According to a report in the British newspaper The Telegraph, gas gangrene is spreading across the country.
“We learned about gas gangrene in school, and now we are seeing it in Ukraine because the injured do not receive proper care,” Alex, a volunteer paramedic working in the Zaporizhzhya region, told the newspaper. “Those who arrived at the hospital had been injured for several weeks and were kept alive using improvised methods in underground medical stabilization rooms.”
It has not yet been independently verified whether the disease spreading among Ukrainian soldiers is actually gas gangrene. However, it cannot be denied that access to the front lines is difficult due to frequent Russian drone attacks. Supplies often do not reach the troops or are significantly delayed in their arrival. New soldiers may have to walk many miles before reaching the battlefield where wounded people await help.
What causes gas gangrene?
This toxic infection rapidly destroys muscle tissue. is caused by bacteria of the genus clostridiumnaturally occurring in, for example, soil and the human intestine.
These bacteria are not necessarily pathogenic. It becomes dangerous only if it penetrates tissues that are starved of oxygen, as is the case with deep, complex wounds. Dead or necrotic tissue can impede wound healing and promote bacterial growth clostridium.
Infectious diseases can spread rapidly in trenches, where there are many injured people and poor sanitary conditions.
Gas gangrene is extremely painful for patients. Air bubbles form under the skin and a crackling sound can be heard when the area around the wound is palpated. The affected muscles become gray-red and swollen. Infected soldiers develop sepsis, increased heart rate, circulatory and respiratory problems, and eventually multiple organ failure.
Even if you receive treatment at a hospital, there is no guarantee that you will be cured once you develop the condition. Without treatment, the mortality rate is nearly 100%, due in part to long evacuation times.
How can gas gangrene be treated?
Affected tissue must be surgically removed as soon as possible. Strong antibiotics must also be given intravenously. To find the most appropriate antibiotic for each patient, microbial cultures are created and tested for resistance.
These procedures require perfect hygiene and can only be carried out in hospitals with examination rooms, not in improvised treatment rooms in bomb shelters. Some antibiotics can be stored in these shelters, but there is no alternative if resistance to these drugs develops.
When was the last time something major happened?
Gas gangrene was thought to have been virtually eradicated in Europe due to medical advances.
In World War I, many wounded soldiers died from disease. More than 100,000 German combatants are believed to have died from the infection. At that time, many wounded soldiers were left in muddy trenches for long periods without receiving medical treatment. There was no wound care or hygiene at all.
Gas gangrene was not a serious problem in World War II. Antibiotics were already widespread enough to be used therapeutically, but they were not yet as common as they are today. However, unlike today, antibiotic resistance was not yet a major problem back then.
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