Interesting news 2012 - 2013
2012
1) March, 1 ABC News
Research links melioidosis to stormwater run-off
2) November, 1 ABC Television
3) December, 7 ABC News
Campaign warns of tropical disease dangers
2013
1) First case of melioidosis in Seychelles
Public health commissioner Dr Jude Gédéon said, "A rare kind of germ which only gets in the lungs when carried by a propellant killed the recent victim of an upper respiratory infection at the Seychelles Hospital, test results have shown." The second victim of the illness was admitted for long, the other was only mildly affected and released soon after he was taken ill. None of the three had recently travelled, he said, adding the bacterium is found in the environment. One of them was a foreigner, he said, naming the disease as melioidosis which he said is caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei – which is not common and has never before been seen here.
2) First B. pseudomallei isolated from soil in Bangladesh
Since 2001, doctors of Ibrahim Medical College have detected five melioidosis patients, who are also diabetic. All these patients come from Mymensingh-Gazipur region, which led scientists to look for the bacteria in the area. This led him and Shariful Alam Jilani, another professor of the same department, and Prof Chowdhury Rafiqul Ahsan and Jamshedul Alam of Dhaka University to start a research to ascertain the source of the bacteria in the beginning of last year. They finally found it in the soil of Kapasia late last month.