HANOI: The flood-hit regions in Vietnam are now facing an outbreak of a deadly disease caused by a bacteria that infects both humans and animals.
Authorities have sounded the alarm after 28 people were found to be suffering from melioidosis, also called Whitmore's disease, following the prolonged flooding at the central regions.
Since early October, the Hue Central Hospital in Thua Thien-Hue province has been receiving patients suffering from similar symptoms and tests confirmed they were infected with the bacterium Burkholderia Pseudomallei.
The province's news website said that around half the patients were from Thua Thien-Hue and the rest were from other central provinces like Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri.
The hospital, which is one of the three biggest and most advanced general hospitals in Vietnam, said many of the
patients came for treatment only after the disease had become serious, causing sepsis and multi-organ failure and threatening their lives.
Vn Express news had, on Nov 14, reported that a Quang Binh Province official died of the disease at the hospital.
The official had spent days in floodwaters last month managing relief efforts.
He had reportedly suffered from a slight injury to his knee, but carried on evacuating people and wading in floodwaters to distribute essential items.
The hospital had treated 83 people with the disease between 2014 and 2019, and 11 people in the first nine months of this year.
It said the rise in the number of infections since early October is closely related to the floods that ravaged the central region throughout October and this month.
Various studies have found that melioidosis occurs only in Southeast Asia and northern Australia, with outbreaks occurring after floods and typhoons.
Melioidosis patients have symptoms like fever, pneumonia, abscesses and inflammation of the brain and joints and its mortality rate is about 50 per cent.
The disease was first diagnosed in Vietnam in 1925, but there is insufficient knowledge about it in the country.
There are about 165,000 cases worldwide every year with about 89,000 deaths, mostly during the rainy season and there is no vaccine for it.
