In view of the recent intense media attention given to necrotising fasciitis it may be opportune to examine the facts. Perhaps the most important, given the current hysteria, is that the number of laboratory reports of systemic infection with group A streptococci in England and Wales made to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre has not changed over the past three years. In the first 16 weeks of this year 200 blood isolates were reported, compared with 212 and 200 in the first 16 weeks of 1993 and 1992, respectively.1

The condition was first described …