Two additional fatalities due to Vibrio vulnificus infection has been reported by state health officials bringing the total to nine, more than all the deaths reported in 2014 (7).
The latest deaths were reported from Brevard and Citrus Counties.
The state’s case tally has risen by three to 17, with the county breakdown as follows: Brevard, Broward, Citrus, Duval and Hillsborough counties with two each and one case a piece in Alachua, Lake, Marion, Pasco, Santa Rosa, Sarasota and St. Lucie Counties.
According to the Todar’s Online Textbook of Bacteriology, V. vulnificus causes a disease with over a 50 percent mortality rate, and it causes 95 percent of all seafood-related deaths.
Vibrio vulnificus is an emerging pathogen of humans. It causes wound infections, gastroenteritis, or a syndrome known as primary septicemia. It was first recognized as an agent of disease in 1976. The first documented case ofdisease caused by the bacterium was in 1979.
V. vulnificus causes disease in individuals who eat contaminated seafood (usually raw or undercooked oysters) or have an open wound that is exposed to seawater. Among healthy people, ingestion of V. vulnificus can cause vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. Most V. vulnificus infections are acute and have no long-term consequences.
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In immunocompromised persons, particularly those with chronic liver disease, V. vulnificus can invade the bloodstream from either a wound or from the GI tract, causing a severe and life-threatening illness called primary septicemia, characterized by fever, chills, septic shock and death. Blistering skin lesionsaccompanythe disease in about 70% of the cases. V. vulnificus bloodstream infections are fatal about 50% of the time.
These individuals are 80-200 times more likely to develop V. vulnificus primary septicemia than are healthy people. For this particular risk group, the infection carries one of the highest mortality rates of all bacterial infections.
