Ekip
January 11, 2016•Update: January 11, 2016
By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
A bacterial disease that killed nearly 90,000 people last year and mimics other illnesses, making it difficult to diagnose, is now thought to be present in more countries than previously understood, according to a notice issued Monday evening.
The update, disseminated by the Bangkok-based Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), refers to a new report in the Nature Microbiology journal that says that health workers and ministries must make the identification of melioidosis – which can be contracted by drinking contaminated water — a priority, even though it has been medically recorded for the past 100 years.
“The study predicts that melioidosis is present in 79 countries, including 34 that have never reported the disease,” MORU said, adding that there is a correlation between an increase in cases and the rise in diabetes “across the tropics, especially among the poor.”
The disease can be particularly dangerous in people who have diabetes.
Dr. Direk Limmathurotsakul, head of microbiology at MORU and assistant professor at Mahidol University, was quoted as saying that the disease will benefit from that increase in diabetes cases, international travel and the movement of animals.
It’s caused by a pathogenic bacterium called Burkholderia pseudomallei, which can be “commonly found in soil and water in South and Southeast Asia and northern Australia,” though its highest-risk areas include all Southeast Asian countries, as well as sub-Saharan Africa and South America.
Worryingly, “the bacterium is resistant to a wide range of antimicrobials, and inadequate treatment may result in case fatality rates exceeding 70 percent,” the notice warned.
The rural poor are some of the most at-risk if affected by melioidosis, which “killed 89,000 of the 165,000 people who got it in 2015.”
According to the U.S.’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, melioidosis is dangerous because it can often be mistaken for pneumonia or tuberculosis. Its symptoms range from a fever to respiratory distress and seizures.
