Vibrio vulnificus is a significant cause of seafood related morbidity and mortality in the United States. On the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, numbers of Vibrio vulnificus are highest with water temperature around 26 ° C and salinity levels of 5-25 parts pr thousands. Under these conditions , number of Vibrio vulnificus can greater than 100000/g of oyster meat.
Vibrio vulnificus can invade through the intestinal barrier onto the bloodstream and has the highest case, fatality rate (approx. 50%) among foodborne pathogens.
Conclusive evidence that Vibrio vulnificus is associated with two forms of serious human illness was presented in 1979 when a study of 39 patients from whom clinical specimens were collected over the period 1964 b-1977 was published.
Beginning in the early 1970s, reports began appearing of extra-intestinal infections with such symptoms as hemorrhagic rash, fever, shock, and tissue ederma and necrosis at the site of the infection. Surgical debridement of affected tissue, amputation of limbs and death were common outcomes.
Vibrio vulnificus
