Melioidosis

Common card · No. 233509

Melioidosis is an infectious disease caused by a gram-negative bacterium called Burkholderia pseudomallei. Most people exposed to B. pseudomallei experience no symptoms, but complications can range from fever and skin changes to pneumonia, abscesses, and septic shock, which can be fatal. Approximately 10% of people with melioidosis develop symptoms that last longer than two months, termed "chronic melioidosis". Prior to the Vietnam war less than a handful of patients had diagnosed in the United States in the twentieth century. In 1966, Murray Spotnitz, M.D., the chief of Pulmonary Medicine at Valley Forge Army Hospital, discovered that a number of servicemen with delayed onset of pulmonary infections had previously been deployed in Vietnam. Spotnitz coined the term "Vietnam Time Bomb" to highlight the fact that B. pseudomallei could remain dormant for years. The term gained traction as subsequent studies revealed latent infections in Vietnam veterans with estimates suggesting up to 250...

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