Pathogen Microbiome Institute, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, United States of America.
University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Jul 29;17(7):e0270997. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270997. eCollection 2022.
Melioidosis is an underreported human disease of tropical and sub-tropical regions caused by the saprophyte Burkholderia pseudomallei. Although most global melioidosis cases are reported from tropical regions in Southeast Asia and northern Australia, there are multiple occurrences from sub-tropical regions, including the United States (U.S.). Most melioidosis cases reported from the continental U.S. are the result of acquiring the disease during travel to endemic regions or from contaminated imported materials. Only two human melioidosis cases from the continental U.S. have likely acquired B. pseudomallei directly from local environments and these cases lived only ~7 km from each other in rural Texas. In this study, we assessed the risk of acquiring melioidosis from the environment within the continental U.S. by surveying for B. pseudomallei in the environment in Texas where these two human melioidosis cases likely acquired their infections. We sampled the environment near the homes of the two cases and at additional sampling locations in surrounding counties in Texas that were selected based on ecological niche modeling. B. pseudomallei was not detected at the residences of these two cases or in the surrounding region. These negative data are important to demonstrate that B. pseudomallei is rare in the environment in the U.S. even at locations where locally acquired human cases likely have occurred, documenting the low risk of acquiring B. pseudomallei infection from the environment in the continental U.S.
类鼻疽是一种发生在热带和亚热带地区的人兽共患疾病，由腐生菌伯克霍尔德菌引起。虽然大多数全球类鼻疽病例报告来自东南亚和澳大利亚北部的热带地区，但也有多个来自亚热带地区的病例，包括美国。美国大陆报告的大多数类鼻疽病例是在前往流行地区旅行或接触受污染的进口材料时感染该病的结果。仅有两例来自美国大陆的人类类鼻疽病例可能是直接从当地环境中获得了伯克霍尔德菌，这两例病例都位于德克萨斯州农村地区，彼此相距约 7 公里。在这项研究中，我们通过在德克萨斯州这两人类类鼻疽病例可能感染的环境中调查伯克霍尔德菌，评估了在美国大陆环境中获得类鼻疽的风险。我们对两例病例的住所附近以及德克萨斯州周边县的其他采样点进行了环境采样，这些采样点是根据生态位模型选择的。在这两个病例的住所或周围地区均未检测到伯克霍尔德菌。这些阴性数据很重要，证明了即使在可能发生本地获得性人类病例的地方，美国环境中的伯克霍尔德菌也很少见，证明了在美国大陆从环境中获得伯克霍尔德菌感染的风险很低。
