Flesh-Eating Bacteria Claims Life of Cruiser

The British media has been hard at work covering the story of a cruise passenger who died after contracting a flesh eating bacteria.

58-year-old Raymond Evans was on a Mediterranean cruise two months ago when he fell in a port city and injured his knee. Upon returning to the ship Evans was treated by the ship's doctor and given rounds of antibiotics.

Some time later, a black spot had shown up on the back of his knee. The knee continued to worsen, and the "blotchy blackness" and deterioration spread to his chest, elbow and fingers.

Evans was placed in the ship's hospital for care and transferred to an intensive care unit at a hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, where he died of multiple organ failure. His death came less than 24 hours after the black spot first appeared on the back of his knee. The cause: a flesh-eating bacteria called necrotizing fasciitis.

According to CDC estimates, necrotizing fasciitis causes between 10,000 and 15,000 infections in the United States every year. Of those, 2,000 to 3,000 prove fatal. The bacteria is most commonly contracted through a wound, often after surgery or injury.

Raymond Evans death was a tragedy, but it's paramount that news organizations not blow these types of events out of proportion. Even if he was infected on board the ship, it doesn't change the reality that cruising has been and remains one of the safest options for travel. It is no more dangerous than staying in a hotel in a major city or using public transportation.

Swine Flu (A H1N1 Virus) dominated the news cycle for the last two weeks as the world watched the infected count rise into the low hundreds. There was even a news story about how the only pig in Afghanistan, on display at a Kabul zoo, had been quarantined to quell local fears and misunderstandings about the virus.

According to the CDC, since January more than 13,000 Americans have died of complications with seasonal flu. The very same flu that comes around every single year. The CDC also estimates that worldwide deaths from the standard seasonal flu number between 250,000 and 500,000.

All this isn't to say that swine flu is a casual issue or that Raymond Evans' death was insignificant, both are important events and deserve to be reported. Evans' widow deserves answers about her husband's medical treatment aboard the ship and in the hospital in Alexandria and our condolences go out to her.

But none of these stories justify sounding the alarm bells over cruising or travel in general. If they do, then people may as well just stay inside for the rest of their lives, stop driving cars, stop eating at restaurants, etc...

What the world really needs right now is a vacation... not another incredibly obscure reason to be afraid.