Bacteria Causing Rare Disease Melioidosis Found in the United States

In July 2022, CDC scientists discovered that Burkholderia pseudomallei, the bacterium that causes the rare disease melioidosis, is now locally endemic to the southern continental United States. Melioidosis is significant: Globally, it's fatal in up to half of people infected, and as a nationally notifiable disease in the United States, melioidosis should always be reported to state health departments and CDC. The finding of B pseudomallei in the southern United States followed a melioidosis diagnosis in a person who lived in very close geographic proximity to someone else who had been diagnosed with melioidosis two years prior — both residents of the same Mississippi county, along the Gulf Coast of the southern United States. Neither had recently traveled outside the United States. Environmental sampling of surface water and soil revealed the presence of B pseudomallei on the property of one of these patients. With a third case identified in January 2023, it's critical that healthcare providers and laboratorians are aware of the potential for additional cases of this newly endemic disease and know what to look out for.

It is not known how long the bacterium has been in the environment and where else it might be found in the United States, but CDC scientists were not shocked by this discovery because the environmental conditions found in the Gulf Coast states are conducive to the growth of