Melioidosis in Bangladesh - A Disease Yet to be Explored!

Abstract

Melioidosis is a disease of public health importance in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar and northern Australia where it is associated with high case-fatality rates. In endemic areas, seroepidemiological surveys have showed that the infection is fairly common in childhood as 80% of children had antibodies by the age of four years.2 In infected individuals the organism may remain dormant inside the phagocytic cells for months, years or decades.3 The factors that provoke reactivation of this latent, dormant “time bomb” are stress and alteration of immune status. Diabetes mellitus, chronic renal failure, cirrhosis of liver, AIDS, hematological malignancies seem to predispose the activation of the disease in an otherwise dormant latent infection. The manifestations are highly diverse ranging from acute pulmonary infection, septicemia, acute or chronic suppurative infections involving almost all organ systems to meningitis.4 Fulminant sepsis is much more common and is associated with high mortality.