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The diagnosis: vibrio vulnificus, an infection caused by a bacteria found in warm salt water. It's in the same family of bacterium that causes cholera. So far this year, 31 people across Florida have been infected by the severe strain of vibrio, and 10 have died.
Patty Konietzky thought the small purple lesion on her husband's ankle was a spider bite. But when the lesion quickly spread across his body like a constellation, she knew something wasn't right.
State health officials say there are two ways to contract the disease: by eating raw, tainted shellfish — usually oysters — or when an open wound comes in contact with bacteria in warm seawater.
justreleased
reply to post by 727Sky
maybe this has something to do with the deepwater horizon oil spill or the fukushima thing....
maybe mother nature is pissed off at the human virus.
Nyiah
justreleased
reply to post by 727Sky
maybe this has something to do with the deepwater horizon oil spill or the fukushima thing....
maybe mother nature is pissed off at the human virus.
Highly doubtful, it's an ever-present bacteria that lives in the aquatic environment & the cases thus far aren't out of the norm. You're probably more liable to die from a random oyster harboring this than a dip in the water, and in either situation, nearly only if you're immuno-compromised already. In a healthy person, if you have any ill-effects from contact with it at all, you'll recover. It's like the odds for the brain amoeba - - always out there, but rare to die from.
Remove the knickers from the caverns of the nether regions. Awareness is fine, but panic over something this normal in it's rarity is unwise. Kind of like people freaking out over the crud they didn't know was growing in their kitchen sink. Doesn't generally bother, sicken or kill anyone much until they read about it & go into overdrive
V. vulnificus is a rare cause of disease, but it is also underreported. Between 1988 and 2006, CDC received reports of more than 900 V. vulnificus infections from the Gulf Coast states, where most cases occur. Before 2007, there was no national surveillance system for V. vulnificus, but CDC collaborated with the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi to monitor the number of cases of V. vulnificus infection in the Gulf Coast region. In 2007, infections caused by V. vulnificus and other Vibrio species became nationally notifiable.
With a nearly 50-percent mortality rate, Vibrio vulnificus is the most deadly foodborne pathogen in the world, according to University of North Carolina at Charlotte Biology Professor Jim Oliver. And instances of infection in the U.S., however rare, are rapidly rising.
While infections from either of the pathogens are still rare compared with, say, Salmonella and Campylobacter, the incidence rate grew faster than any of the other five microbes tracked in the Centers for Disease Control’s 2012 Food Safety Progress Report. The vulnificus strain is responsible for 95 percent of seafood-related illness fatalities in the U.S., according to a 2013 study by Oliver and Joanna Nowakowska. Another Vibrio strain, parahaemolyticus, is milder, causing diarrhea, nausea, fever and chills, according to CDC.
Several studies have linked Vibrio’s quick growth rate with rising ocean temperatures, a critical condition favorable to the saltwater-based bacterium. Instances of Vibrio have started showing up in colder places where they were largely unheard-of before.
“Most notably, they’ve been [seeing cases] in places like the Baltic and Germany,” Oliver said.