Fatal Infection after a Bee Sting

Life-threatening or even fatal infections can rarely develop after bee stings. Deaths resulting from bee stings are uncommon [1, 2]. When they do occur, the deaths are usually due to anaphylactic shock, suffocation after stings in the airways, or preexisting diseases, such as atherosclerotic heart disease [2]. Deaths due to massive envenomation have also been noted, especially among individ-uals stung by so-called Africanized honeybees, which attack in great numbers [3]. There are rare reports of local [4] and disseminated [5±7] infections after bee stings, none of which proved fatal. We report a case of fatal disseminated infection after a bee sting; to our knowledge, it is the ®rst such case ever reported in the English-language medical literature. The left hand of a 71-year-old man was stung by a bee. The man had undergone aortic valve replacement 12 years befor