A dangerous waterborne pathogen called Vibrio vulnificus is a naturally occurring bacterium that likes warm salty waters, which means the chances of becoming infected increases in the summer.
Connecticut only sees a handful of cases a year and Connecticut’s Public Health Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani said “this is not something that people have to be extremely worried about.”
The so-called flesh eating bacteria can infect people through a cut in the skin or by consuming raw or under cooked shellfish like oysters.
Connecticut tests all shellfish harvested from its waters from June to September. But Juthani says it is hard to know where your oysters were harvested from when you go out to eat.
Juthani said the symptoms of an infection are similar to many other gastrointestinal illnesses; diarrhea, fever, shakes and chills.
“Dehydration is one of the biggest problems that we can have from these types of infection,” she said, so if a person is experiencing a lot of diarrhea, he or she should seek medical care.
An infection via an open wound will present itself quite soon after exposure.
“The speed and rapidity of change from that infection is the thing that should tip you off right away,” Juthani said.
She said to seek medical care if the redness around a wound is expanding within a few hours, if you experience pain at the site of the wound or you develop a fever.
“It's treatable, often with antibiotics alone,” Juthani said.
If the infection is left untreated, the skin could begin changing color from reddish to purplish. Juthani said that is indicative of “flesh eating kind of activity.”
Other extreme symptoms include numbness in the area, high fevers, altered mental state and vomiting.
“You want to make sure you get seen as quickly as possible,” Juthani said because they are “very bad signs of a bad infection.”
Juthani said older people and those with immunocompromising conditions such as liver disease and uncontrolled diabetes are most at risk.
But even if you are young or healthy, Dr. Juthani advises anybody with an open wound or cut should avoid going into any coastal waters or any brackish water because she said our skin is our biggest defense against infection.
“It is just up to an individual person’s risk tolerance”, she added.
But she said the public needs to be knowledgeable about it.
“A rip-roaring infection can have dire consequences within 48 hours,” Juthani said.
