| Flesh-Eating Bananas (South Africa Variant) | |||
|
| |||
| Netlore Archive: 2005 variant of a forwarded email warning that shipments of bananas from Costa Rica are infected with bacteria that cause necrotizing fasciitis ('flesh-eating disease') | |||
| |||
2003 Variant:
Email example contributed by B. Bartlett, 7 April 2005:
|
FW: please don't eat bananas for the next 3 weeks Several shipments of bananas from Costa Rica have been infected with necrotizing fasciltis, otherwise known as flesh eating bacteria. Recently this disease has decimated the monkey population in Costa Rica. We are now just learning that the disease has been able to graft itself to the skin of fruits in the region, most notably the banana which is Costa Rica's largest export. Until this finding scientist were not sure how the infection was being transmitted. It is advised not to purchase bananas for the next three weeks as this is the period of time for which bananas that have been shipped to the us with the possibility of carrying this disease. If you have eaten a banana in the last 2-3 days and come down with a fever followed by a skin infection seek MEDICAL ATTENTION!!! The skin infection from necrotizing fasciitis is very painful and eats two to three centimeters of flesh per hour. Amputation is likely, death is possible.. If you are more than an hour from a medical center burning the flesh ahead of the infected area is advised to help slow the spread of the infection. The FDA has been reluctant to issue a country wide warning because of fear of a nationwide panic. They have secretly admitted that they feel upwards of 15,000 South Africans will be affected by this but that these are" Acceptable numbers". Please forward this to as many of people you care about as possible as we do not feel 15,000 people is an acceptable number. |
Comments: False. This is a slightly revised version of an email hoax that circulated in the U.S. in 2000. The timing of its reappearance suggests it was intended as an April Fools' prank. As was observed five years ago, both here and on the CDC Web site, fruit is an unlikely vehicle for the transmission of the bacteria that cause necrotizing fasciitis, colloquially known as the "flesh-eating disease." Consumers need not fear bananas imported from Costa Rica or any other point of origin.
Read more:
Attack of the Flesh-Eating Bananas!
Netlore Archive, January 2000The Great Banana Scare of 2000
Timeline of the Internet hoaxGo On, Eat a Banana
News24.com, Cape Town, South Africa, 14 April 2005
Last updated: 04/15/05
