Abstract
We identified 10 patients in Thailand with culture-confirmed melioidosis who had Burkholderia pseudomallei isolated from their drinking water. The multilocus sequence type of B. pseudomallei from clinical specimens and water samples were identical for 2 patients. This finding suggests that drinking water is a preventable source of B. pseudomallei infection.
Highlights
Available but not consumedA total of 43 (7%) of 576 water samples were culture positive for B. pseudomallei (Table 1)
We identified 10 patients in Thailand with cultureconfirmed melioidosis who had Burkholderia pseudomallei isolated from their drinking water
Filters were cultured on Ashdown agar to obtain a quantitative bacterial count, and diatomaceous earth was cultured in selective broth containing (15 mL of threonine– basal salt plus colistin broth) to obtain a sensitive, qualitative method
Summary
A total of 43 (7%) of 576 water samples were culture positive for B. pseudomallei (Table 1). Of the 43 culture-positive water samples, 21 (7%) of 288 were from control households and 22 (15%) of 142 were from case-patient households. Ten of these case-patients with melioidosis reported drinking from contaminated water sources in the 30 days before the onset of illness. A total of 91 colonies from 10 water samples and 1 colony isolated from blood culture [7] or sputum [3] from each case-patient was examined by using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and MLST. The median number of different genotypes observed per water sample was 3 (range 1–6). Two case-patients were infected with a B. pseudomallei genotype that was present in their drinking water (Table 2)
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