Flesh-eating bacteria in Florida waters

By Adam Sadik and Paul Paronich •

With hurricane season in effect, there is an unsuspecting threat to be weary of that can make the season even more dangerous.

This threat is a bacterium named Vibrio vulnificus, and when contracted can lead to serious health problems Adhvika Saravanan, sophomore neuroscience and biology major, has been paying close attention to the outbreak.

“I’ve talked about it with a few people. People from my home-state, Connecticut, have contracted and died from it so I have been paying more close attention,” Saravanan said.

This bacterium can be contracted through open flesh wounds, which encounter brackish seawater, or the consumption of raw shellfish, predominantly oysters.

Healthy individuals typically experience mild symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea and infection of surrounding tissue. Individuals with weakened immune systems should be more cautious as it can be a serious concern, especially if the bacteria gain access to the bloodstream (sepsis).

“Infection is through skin lesions. That’s basically it’s kind of opportunistic and random. Also, the people who suffer the most are those that might be immunocompromised and elderly,” said Jose Victor Lopez, NSU faculty and microbiology professor with research through multidisciplinary laboratory collaborations. “You pretty much get tissue necrosis. The tissue just starts being degraded. This is due to inflammation, and the body has lost control of the reproduction of the bacteria.”

Manas Peddiboyina, senior public health major, is worried about the outbreak.

“I saw a story in North Florida where someone got infected while underwater. Other than that, I don’t know too much. Honestly, it’s worrying,” Peddiboyina said.

Ways to avoid infection include not consuming raw shellfish and oysters, ensuring they were cooked adequately and avoiding exposure of open wounds to warm salt water.

Intensifying temperatures due to climate change are only making this problem worse, which acts like an incubator to breed more of these bacteria.

“We have just had this very hot summer, and sea temperatures are rising. Some of the temperatures are over 100 degrees, which is like a hot tub. So that’s got to be affecting the bacterial populations. But you have these huge changes in seawater temperature. That’s kind of what our lab studies are. We look at the communities of bacteria, not just one species because they’re interacting. If you take a milliliter of sea water, there’s millions of bacteria in that seawater and hundreds of species,” Lopez said. “It’s not surprising that you’re going to have some deaths.”

There has been a total of 74 cases and 17 deaths in 2022, most of them coming after major Hurricane Ian flooded numerous communities, according to WESH Orlando News.