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Flesh-eating bacteria have migrated to the Delaware Bay between Delaware and New Jersey, doctors say.
Five boxes of infection with Vibrio vulnificus occurred in 2017 and 2018 along the Delaware Bay, compared to the previous decade.
Pre-existing health problems
The infections resulted in one death and multiple rounds of surgery to save the other patients. Dr. Katherine Doktor, an infectious disease specialist at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersy, said.
"In order to stop the infection, the person needs antibiotics and they need to be taken to the OR [operating room] quickly so any infected tissue can be removed, so it does not spread further, "she said.
But Doktor added that the bacteria tends to strike hardest at people with pre-existing health problems like liver disease, diabetes, kidney failure or a compromised immune system.
"Just going to the beach or going to the bay is not going to make you sick," she said. "These people usually have a cut and the water gets into the cut, or they eat raw seafood that's infected."
Vibrio bacteria cause an estimated 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths in the United States each year, with most infections in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One in five people with this type of infection, sometimes within days of becoming ill, the CDC warns.
Tainted seafood
Because the bacteria thrive in warmer, it is usually found in southern waters, Doktor said.
But cases of Vibrio Delaware Bay has a few years back, Doktor and her colleagues reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Crabbing in the bay or eating crabs taken from the bay, the doctors said. The fifth case involved a man who worked at a seafood restaurant in New Jersey.
Wound infections affecting a person's limbs occur through breaks in the skin, while eating tainted seafood can cause intestinal and bloodstream infections, the researchers said. Large blood blisters start popping up at sites where skin cells are dying off, Doktor explained.
"On average, people need to be taken back to the OR," she said.
It's not just in the United States that Vibrio is migrating northward, Doktor said. In Europe, infections with the bacteria have spread as far north as Norway.
Temperature changes
Dr. Amesh Adalja is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in Baltimore. He said, "Vibrio vulnificus The disease is contracted in Delaware Bay, an area not known to be endemic for the bacteria, should be used as an important reminder that infectious diseases can expand their homeopathy. new report.
"If certain bodies of water have had temperature changes that allow Vibrio vulnificus To flourish in a new region, it will be important that clinicians have heightened awareness of this serious, and sometimes fatal, infection in order to diagnose and treat it appropriately, "Adalja added.
Doktor advised that shellfish lovers should exercise caution when having a seafood meal, especially if they have a health condition that compromises their body 's ability to stave off infection.
"Some people, when they shuck the crabs, they use gloves," she said. "I would protect your skin by wearing gloves."
You might want to think twice about hitting the raw bar, too.
"As an infectious disease physician, I do not think people should be eating raw seafood," Doktor said. "But if you do not have any of these risk factors, the chance of infection is much, much lower."
Image credit: iStock
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