Katherine Doktor, an infectious disease doctor at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, usually treats patients for conditions like sexually transmitted diseases, pneumonia, and other fairly common infections.
So in 2017 when she and her colleagues treated a patient for Vibrio vulnificus, a deadly bacterium endemic to the southeastern United States, they were a little surprised.
But after the first case, they saw four more over the next two years.
The bacteria can enter the body by eating raw and undercooked seafood — particularly oysters — or through a cut in the skin that is exposed to water where the bacteria live. Four of the five patients had been catching, cleaning, or eating crabs in the Delaware Bay before they got sick.
Vibrio vulnificus likes warm, brackish water, which means historically it wasn’t found in the Delaware Bay because it was too cold. It preferred the consistently warmer temperatures of the southeastern coast and even the Chesapeake Bay.
Rising global temperatures have changed that. Click on the headline below for the story from WHYY
Deadly bacteria on the rise in the Delaware Bay — and climate change is the likely culprit
