Latest news with #melioidosis
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Warning to Aussie gardeners after string of deaths: 'People should be frightened'
Victims of a "life-changing" disease that has killed dozens of Aussies this year are urging others to stay vigilant, with those who spend time outdoors or tending to gardens at greatest risk. There have been 221 cases and 31 deaths from melioidosis in north Queensland this year, and authorities are scrambling to understand what brought on the sudden surge. James Schmidt, 54, is currently suffering from the disease which is caused by bacteria commonly found in soil and water in South East Asia and northern Australia. From a Townsville hospital bed he told Yahoo News he first noticed something wasn't right when he found an abscess in his glute. "I developed the abscess in early February and it was first treated with antibiotics," he said, detailing his diagnosis and battle to beat the disease. "I was then admitted to the hospital to have it drained. After being discharged, 24 hours later the infectious diseases ward rang me asking me to report back to the hospital. Pathology had found melioidosis," he explained, saying he had no idea he had it. James has since been fighting the life-threatening disease and faces a long recovery after suffering a spinal fracture from a seizure. The bacteria causing melioidosis live in soil and groundwater. The bacteria thrive in warm and humid areas, meaning those in North Queensland, the Top End of the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia are most at risk. Melioidosis increases with high rainfall and flooding and these conditions have driven the current outbreak in north Queensland. Another Townsville resident Scott Kirstenfeldt, 47, who previously worked in Casuarina in the Northern Territory and survived the disease twice — once in 1999 and 2002 — told Yahoo News he believes he was more susceptible to it as he worked as a groundskeeper for a large shopping complex and "did gardening at home". "If you are immune compromised with illness, have a cut or abrasion, or breathe in the bacteria it can infect your body in the area of initial infection and spread through the bloodstream if not treated quickly," Scott said. James confirmed to Yahoo he frequently maintained residential homes as part of his job as a disability home carer and it's likely he picked up the bacteria then. While Scott is wary of causing panic, he has issued an urgent plea to Aussies who live in the current hotspot and along the northern parts of the country to be wary of it. "Melioidosis is generally considered rare to catch... but people should be frightened, [it] is extremely dangerous and if not treated quickly will result in death from total organ failure," he said. "Imagine the worst cold or flu you've suffered from and multiply it by five... I don't know how to put into words how truly life-changing it is, and after you've been released from hospital it takes years to fully recover." The disease generally takes up to four weeks to establish itself, meaning many don't develop symptoms immediately once exposed. Symptoms include fever, headache, non-healing skin cores and seizures. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
ABC News
20-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Difficult to diagnose and potentially deadly — this lesser-known disease is becoming more common
A deadly bacterial disease that mimics symptoms of other illnesses is becoming more common after an historically wet summer in the tropical climates of north Queensland. So far this year the soil-borne bacteria, melioidosis, has claimed 31 lives with the total number of cases exceeding 200. Experts say it is the worst year for the disease in Queensland in about three decades. With a predicted increase of severe weather in the face of climate change, they say it's possible the disease will pop up in areas where it hasn't been recorded before and numbers could steadily increase. For 17-year-old Camille Leahy and her mum Danika, when the rains came to Townsville this year they couldn't help but feel anxious. While their house wasn't affected during the city's significant flooding event in 2019, it brought a mystery "mud bug" illness landing Camille, then 11, in hospital multiple times. It first popped up as a condition called "erythema nodosum", which are raised red lumps or ulcers all over her legs that caused her intense pain. "I remember drawing circles around the dots and then the next morning waking up and it'd be way bigger than the circle." Some were around the size of a 50 cent piece while others were the size of a human hand. She was unable to run, dance and do athletics and much of the time she could barely walk without pain. After repeated visits to doctors and specialists over three months, Camille finally received a diagnosis. In the meantime she'd developed gastro-intestinal problems. "I think in that year all up Camille had just shy of 50 blood tests, X-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans, MRIs, biopsies, needle aspirations; they did the works," mum Danika Leahy said. It was only by chance that a junior doctor suggested they test for melioidosis. Because of her young age and health, her case was considered extremely rare. "We were just very lucky that that one particular doctor had run those tests because had she not, we don't know how that would have changed the outcome honestly," Ms Leahy said. In Australia, the disease has a mortality rate of between 10 and 15 per cent. In some parts of South East Asia, it's as high as 70 per cent. Dr Robert Norton is a retired microbiologist who still works with the College of Pathologists delivering training on how to identify melioidosis. "It is a very significant disease in terms of its ability to kill," Dr Norton said. Of this year's 31 deaths, 24 people were aged over 60 years old — with many having known risk factors including diabetes, chronic lung disease or other conditions that compromise immunity. Dr Norton said the organism that causes the disease — burkholderia pseudomallei — is pushed to the surface of the soil as the water table rises, which is why it's more prevalent after rain. "Research has shown that if there's more than 300 millimetres of rain in a fortnight, we start to see disease occurring in our vulnerable people," he said. When it is in the environment it can be contracted through contact with the soil, or even breathed in when winds aerosolise the bacteria. Dr Norton said if we saw a continuation of widespread rainfall similar to this wet season, then it was very likely the disease would appear in places it hadn't been detected before. "How far south it expands is hard to say because it has to be present in the soil," Dr Norton said. Dr Ella Meumann, a senior research fellow at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, said it could be difficult to gauge what impact climate change could have on the distribution of the disease in the future. "Disentangling those sorts of variations in climatic factors from actual climate change and those more longer term trends is challenging," she said. Internationally, and in Australia, there are many examples where severe weather has "unmasked" the bacteria already likely to be present in the soil. "There have been cases reported in south-east Queensland during periods of heavy rainfall, likewise in the desert regions of Central Australia, there are occasionally cases that occur," Dr Meumann said. "In recent years it's been identified for the first time in the environment in the Southern Continental United States in Mississipi." Since 1989, the research team has been tracking how the disease spread throughout the suburbs of Darwin. Dr Meumann said it was understood construction work and heavy earthworks could uncover the bacteria. "With construction of new suburbs around Darwin, there has been an increase in cases potentially related to that sort of activity," she said. A spokesperson for the health department said it had not observed a "geographical extension" of the melioidosis risk areas this year. Dr Norton said the disease was often difficult to diagnose as there were no typically presenting symptoms. "The biggest problem with diagnosis is that it can mimic a lot of different diseases and in medicine you need to have an idea of what the bug is," he said. It more commonly presents with respiratory symptoms and is often known to attach itself to prostates. He said even looking at scans that showed the damage to organs and muscles, it was not evident melioidosis was present without testing it in a lab. Samples from sputum and or blood are taken, cultured and then within 48 hours doctors are usually able to identify the bacteria. Dr Norton said there needed to be an understanding of the bacteria in order to identify it correctly under a microscope. "The bug may be grown, but not easily identified," he said. "The challenge for laboratories, which are not familiar with the organism, is to learn how to diagnose it because people travel. You could get somebody from Melbourne spending two weeks up here during the wet season, returning [home] and going to Monash or Royal Melbourne with this sort of illness." In Darwin, at the Menzies School of Health Science, there has been preliminary work to create a Rapid Antigen Test, which can be used to streamline diagnosis, but it's still in its infancy. While the disease is typically caught when a person with a cut on an exposed part of their body comes into contact with soil containing the bacteria, the cause of 75-year-old Lyn Coomber's illness remains unclear. It's believed she caught the disease when rain inundated her third-floor Townsville apartment and soaked through carpets and furniture. "We got some people in to dry the place out. We stripped the bedrooms of all the furniture and pulled up the wet carpet and that was fine," Ms Coomber said. After the rain, she went to hospital for a planned heart her surgery but after a couple of days at home, she was struggling to swallow and had to return. "I've been in an apartment for three years now and I didn't have any interaction in mud or anything like that, so I was a little bit bewildered about this," she said. "I have a fairly active lifestyle but not gardening. I don't really dig." The origin of Camille's illness in 2019 also remains a mystery. Her family believe they may have inadvertently brought home mud housing the bacteria, which then passed on to her. When doctors discovered what she had, she was immediately hospitalised and put on a course of antibiotics. Ms Leahy said it was obvious that, because Camille was so healthy and young, her body was fighting the illness off and keeping it at bay. She's worried there may be a level of complacency in the community around the illness given Queenslanders are so used to wet weather. "I feel like the messaging that goes out there is very narrow with regards to what symptoms to look out for and what precursor [conditions] make you susceptible," she said. "Camille had none of the main symptoms that we would normally look for so maybe there needs to be more messaging around that." A health department spokesperson said the weekly number of newly reported infections had declined since it peaked in late January. "[It] is currently tracking at a similar rate to the previous five years," the spokesperson said.
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Heartbreak for Aussie families as death toll from 'killer' disease hits 'unprecedented' numbers
A grieving family have warned Australians to take the 'unprecedented' rise in cases of a deadly, soil-borne disease seriously. At least 31 Aussies have died after being infected by tropical disease melioidosis so far this year, with 211 cases recorded across the state. The number of people suffering from the disease, caused by bacteria lurking in mud and dirty water, has seen a significant increase compared to previous years. The family of Evan Brown, who contracted the disease and died in hospital in March last year, warned that Australians should not assume their symptoms are flu. 'That's something we didn't put together and I really wish that we had,' his wife Sarah Brown said. 'I really hope that people can start to hear the message and really understand that it is present - and it's probably going to get worse if we keep having these big flood seasons.' Mr Brown, who was diabetic with an auto-immune condition, thought he had suffered from a virus after being sick on and off for a month before he was admitted to hospital. His organs began shutting down and he was airlifted to the Gold Coast where he eventually passed away. Ms Brown said the rising death toll was incredibly triggering for her family. 'It's been really scary for us because obviously it makes everything very present and very conscious again for us,' she said. The fatal tropical disease, caused by bacteria which lives in water or soil that has been disturbed, is commonly detected in northern Australia. It is seasonal in nature, with cases often occurring during wet season when there has been heavy rain or flooding, such as that seen across Queensland during autumn. Professor Paul Griffin, Mater Health Services' director of infectious diseases, said the extraordinary flooding in north Queensland was a key factor in the surging cases. 'When you see the rainfall and the flooding events that we've had, it was expected that we'd have a potential increase in cases,' he said. 'But I think the magnitude and the number of deaths in particular is a bit of a surprise.' Some medical experts have also suggested the disturbance of soil during the Bruce Highway upgrade could be a contributing factor. 'It's certainly been speculated that there's some clustering of cases around there and that may be a factor,' Prof Griffin said. Infrastructure body Transport and Main Roads, which is responsible for the project, has said previously that they met with researchers about the construction. 'Should health investigations confirm ground-disturbing works are a contributing factor in the spread of soil-borne bacteria causing illnesses, TMR will implement any recommendations from experts to ensure essential road projects meet the highest level of safety,' a TMR spokesperson said. Those with underlying health conditions like diabetes and lung disease, along with people who drink a lot of alcohol, are urged to take precautions. Symptoms include fever, pneumonia, exhaustion, vomiting, abdominal pains and chest pressure. When potentially exposed to contaminated water or handling soil, gumboots, long pants, gloves and masks are recommended.
News.com.au
14-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Dozens of people have died from a melioidosis outbreak in northern Queensland
An outbreak of a soil borne disease linked to heavy rainfall and flooding has resulted in dozens of deaths in northern Queensland this year. Queensland Health confirmed 31 people have died from melioidosis and 221 cases have been reported this year, an increase of 163 cases compared the same period last year. 'Cases are most commonly reported in residents of the Torres and Cape, North West, Cairns and Hinterland and Townsville regions,' a spokesman said. According to Queensland Health, melioidosis is rare tropical disease caused by a bacteria found in soil and groundwater in South East Asia and northern parts of Australia across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The disease occurs when bacteria enters the body from soil through cuts or sores, drinking contaminated water or by breathing it in after heavy rain in the wet season or flooding. While melioidosis is rare in healthy adults and children, people with long term health conditions or people who drink heavily are more susceptible to the disease, which can be life threatening. James Cook University head of biomedical sciences and molecular biology Jeffrey Warner has been examining melioidosis in northern Australia. Professor Warner said the saprophyte organism typically lived in the tropics and occurred naturally in soils and water courses after it rained, but its habitat seemed to be expanding. 'That's almost certainly due to both climate and environmental changes that's been happening recently,' he said. 'The disease presents in many different ways, the what we like to say up here in the north, it's one of the most common causes of fatal bacterial community acquired pneumonia that is not acquired in a hospital. 'Because it rains very heavily, the organism can get liberated out of the soil – its natural habitat – and then people predisposed to it can get exposed and become very sick with pneumonia, blood poisoning or sepsis.' Professor Warner said there had been a shift in places were melioidosis was present over the past 10 to 15 years and more cases were appearing in Cairns Melioidosis cases increased by 400 per cent in Cairns and 600 per cent in Townsville this year, and scientists are trying to understand what caused the recent outbreak in the north and why more people were susceptible to it. 'Normally, it was traditionally Townsville, so that's changed and melioidosis has been on the move,' he said. 'Melioidosis is an infection that scientists predicted would change with climate change, because it was an environmental infection people got from the environment. 'We should not be surprised if environment changes and climate changes, it's going to influence the availability of this organism and its ability to be transmitted. 'The climate scientists are telling us the world is warming and as the world warms that has other impacts on climate and weather, and one of those are changes in rainfall.' Professor Warner said Townsville received about five times more rain than normal, measuring up to 5m during the wet season, and as a consequence about six times more melioidosis cases were reported at this time of year. 'There was a clear correlation between the huge amount of rain in Townsville and the huge number of melioidosis cases, but what's really interesting is that Cairns was not quite like that,' he said. 'Cairns had a bit more rain year to date than average it was not significantly more rain, but it had a very large increase in cases that were four times more than normal.' He said authorities were trying to understand if the outbreak was a one off or something they needed to prepare for in the future. 'It's like anything that creeps upon us slowly, we don't necessarily see it happening, or know what the causal effects of it really are,' he said.
ABC News
14-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Melioidosis death toll hits 31 with latest fatality in Townsville
Another person has died from soil-borne disease melioidosis in Queensland, bringing this year's death toll from the disease to 31. The latest Queensland Health figures show one person in Townsville has died from the infection in the past week. There have also been four new melioidosis cases reported in the same period. Three of those cases were around Cairns and the other was in the Townsville region. Townsville Public Health Unit director Steven Donahue said the latest death illustrated how serious the illness could be. "As you can imagine, this is concerning," Dr Donahue said. The elderly, heavy drinkers, and those with chronic health conditions are most at risk. Melioidosis is a rare disease caused by bacteria found in soil and water in northern Australia and South-East Asia. The bacteria enters the body through cuts or inhalation, so cases soared after record-breaking flooding. Queensland Health said it had received 221 melioidosis notifications this year, which experts have described as a significant of the cases have been in Cairns and Townsville, including a cluster in Townsville's northern suburbs. Symptoms include fever and coughing, which can be mistaken for other illnesses, and the disease can develop into fatal sepsis. Dr Donahue said reports of new cases had died down significantly as the weather dried up. "So far as we can see, the outbreak that we've had this year is probably over," he said. The number of cases has soared since flooding, as people cleaned up after the floods and came into contact with the bacteria. Health authorities have continued to urge people to cover up when working outside. There is also a theory that more than a decade of construction works on the Bruce Highway has stirred up clay-like soil believed to harbour the bacteria. The Queensland government has said that stringent environmental protection protocols reduced the risk of soil-borne diseases leaving worksites. Dr Donahue said there was a range of reasons for the outbreak. "It's entirely plausible that a number of the cases in the south of Cairns, near the Bruce Highway upgrade may be linked to that, but of course there are a number of factors," he said. "We know that melioidosis tends to affect older people, and those with immune problems, or diseases like diabetes, kidney disease, as well as people's behaviour. "There are a number of things going on."
