Experts fear virus spread to US after five deaths

There may be a silent killer lurking in your backyard.

Experts are sounding the alarm about a deadly bacteria found in American gardens after it caused scores of deaths in Australia this year.

Burkholderia pseudomallei, a bacterium present in soil and water in tropical regions, can cause melioidosis, a lung infection that can lead to pneumonia or sepsis, and has a mortality rate of up to 50%. in some cases.

In 2024 alone, five people in Australia died from the disease, which they contracted after coming into contact with contaminated soil.

Experts fear that natural disasters like hurricanes, storms and other inclement weather may increase the risk of its spread in the United States.

Colonies of Burkholderia pseudomallei bacteria grown on sheep blood agar for 72 hours. — The fatality rate from the bacteria is as high as 50%, and people with underlying health conditions are at higher risk of infection. Getty Images

“The most serious way people become infected is through severe weather events such as monsoon storms, and in particular when there are tropical cyclones with wind and rain, bacteria become aerosolized and people can then inhale them,” Bart Curry. said Professor of Medicine at the Menzies School of Medical Research. Yahoo News.

“Especially if people are exposed to storms and severe weather, even healthy people can get very sick. This is what causes the most severe form of melioidosis – very severe pneumonia that develops into blood poisoning.”

A hand with a visible cut, symbolizing the little recognized and underdiagnosed disease melioidosis. — Bacteria can enter the body through a cut. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology

Although the bacteria is most often found in Asia and Australia, cases of melioidosis have been found in the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and even Mississippi. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified cases in patients in Texas, Minnesota, Kansas and Georgia.

Last year the CDC declared endemic due to the spread of the disease along the Gulf Coast. At the time, experts said people with kidney and liver problems are at increased risk of infection, which sometimes occurs without symptoms.

If symptoms do occur, they include fever, headache, muscle pain, confusion, chest pain, difficulty breathing and seizures. The disease requires intravenous antibiotics for two weeks and months of oral antibiotics after that.

“This is one of those diseases that is also called the great imitator because it can look different,” Julia Petras, an epidemic intelligence officer at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. previously told HealthDay News.

“It’s very underappreciated, underappreciated and underappreciated—we often like to say it’s a forgotten, forgotten tropical disease.”