Despite killing 89,000 per year, little is known about
Burkholderia pseudomallei.
A deadly type
of bacteria has been found to get into a person's brain just 24 hours after
they inhale it. Furthermore, scientists say Burkholderia pseudomallei can enter
a person's system without them even realising, either waiting for an
"opportune moment" or slowly damaging their brain function.
Burkholderia
pseudomallei is found in northern Australia and southeast Asia and causes the
disease meliodiosis. It lives below the soil surface during the dry season, but
with heavy rainfall it moves up to the surface water and mud and becomes
airborne – at which point a person can inhale it.
After
entering the brain, it has a death rate of around 50% and is responsible for
around 89,000 deaths every year. Yet little is known about how it travels
around the body.
Researchers from Griffith University and
Bond University in Australia looked at how the bacteria travels to the brains
of mice. Their findings, published in the journal Immunity,showed that after entering the
nasal cavity, it moves up to the brain stem and into the spinal cord. They
found it reached the brain within 24 hours.
James
St John, one of the study authors, said: "Imagine walking around and you
sniff it up from the soil and the next day you've got this bacteria in your
brain and damaging the spinal cord. It can be at a very low level, the body
doesn't even know it's there. You could have it and don't know it, that's
scary. It could just be sitting there waiting for an opportune moment, or it
could just be doing small incremental damage over a lifetime. You could lose
the function in your brain incrementally."
Ifor
Beacham, another author, added: "Our latest results represent the first
direct demonstration of transit of a bacterium from the olfactory mucosa to the
central nervous system (CNS) via the trigeminal nerve; bacteria were found a
considerable distance from the olfactory mucosa, in the brain stem, and even
more remarkably in the spinal cord."
He
said that while the findings "add considerably" to our understanding
of the disease, there is still a lot to learn. "What are the long term
consequences? Do the bacteria hide away until sometime later and do little bits
of incremental damage, or do they immediately cause full blown infection? We are
now working on these questions," he added.
Meliodiosis
Meliodiosis
has a variety of symptoms that depend on the area of infection. It can cause
chest infections, fever, headaches, confusion and pain. Symptoms normally
appear between one and 21 days after infection, however there have been cases
where the disease has caused illness several years after the infection. It is
treated with antibiotics, which normally have to be taken for at least three
months.
Representative
Image
Source:IBT
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