It turns out there are a lot of things that can kill you. In fact, one hidden danger could be waiting in your backyard, ready to strike like an assassin. This is especially true if you do any gardening work.
It turns out that there's a deadly bacteria potentially lurking in your soil. It's already caused several deaths in Australia so far this year. Don't think being in the States protects you. Because the virus can be found in America as well. We're talking about a bacteria called Burkholderia pseudomallei. It produces a condition called Melioidosis. It's basically a lung infection that leads to pneumonia or sepsis. The mortality rate is 50%.
Five people died earlier this year from the condition. Generally, the bacteria can become airborne when strong winds or storms kick up dirt. People then breathe in the soil.
Hidden Backyard Danger
"The most serious way that people can get it is when there's severe weather events, such as monsoonal storms, and in particular, when there are tropical cyclones with wind and rain the bacteria are aerosolized and people can then breathe it in," Bart Currie, a professor of medicine at the Menzies School of Health Research, told Yahoo News.
He continued, "Particularly if people are caught out in storms and severe weather — even healthy people can get very sick from it. That's what causes the most severe form of melioidosis, which is a very severe pneumonia, which turns into blood poisoning."
The bacteria is found in Asia and Australia. But it's been found in Puerto Rico, the United States, and the Virgin Islands. In the past, it's made people sick in Kansas, Georgia, Texas, and Minnesota. In fact, the CDC declared it an endemic in 2023 after it spread in the Gulf Coast.
"This is one of those diseases that is also called the great mimicker because it can look like a lot of different things," Julia Petras, epidemic intelligence service officer for the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, previously told HealthDay News. "It's greatly under-reported and under-diagnosed and under-recognized — we often like to say that it's been the neglected, neglected tropical disease."
