Overview Of Vibrio Vulnificus Bacteria

Vibrio Vulnificus (Vv) is a type of gram-negative bacteria which is generally found in estuarine and maritime environment which majorly causes contamination in seafood like shellfish and planktons. It is a movable and rod-shaped bacteria which has single polar flagellum and salt-loving in nature. It belongs to the Kingdom- bacteria, phylum- proteobacteria, class- gammabacteria, order- vibrionales, family- vibrionaceae, genus- vibrio and species- vibrio Vulnificus. Vibrio genus have 30 different type of species and 14 species are considered ‘virulent’ for human beings and vibrio vulnificus is one of them. It is different from other species of vibrio because it is capable of fermenting lactose which other species of vibrio genus cannot. It is not present in the sea due to pollutants or contaminants but it is there due to the favorable conditions of their existence are present in seawater and its number and growth is depend on the temperature of the water.

It is a bacterium which takes the advantage of their host to cause infection if they have weak immune system or the host is already suffering from severe diseases mainly related to liver and thus considered as opportunistic bacteria. In specific scenarios, this bacterium can cause severe as well as fatal diseases. These comprise an obtrusive sepsis generally through eating raw or not well-cooked oysters, and infections of wounds causes through coming in contact with infected oysters, infected seawater or any other infected seafood. Since, it is able to cause severe sepsis and infections of wound mainly in people having poor immunity, it is the reason behind death rate of more than 50%.

It should also be noted that Vv is capable of inducing exceptionally fast infections and serious septicemia if consumed raw or less cooked seafood, also by exposing open wounds to brackish water. Mostly, infection caused by Vv is seen in people already suffering from severe drinking habits, liver diseases, kidney problems, cancer because these patients have weak immune system.

Seriousness of the diseases caused by Vv infections are also depends on various factors like amount of intake of Vv infected seafood, exposure to inoculum, harmfulness capability of the individual, state of health, condition of the immune system (if poor or weak) so these are at high risk of getting infected from this bacteria.

The infection caused by these bacteria are increasing with a very fast pace and incidences are more in countries like the USA, Spain, Germany and Korea. Specially in the USA, infection of Vv causes beyond 95% deaths due to the high amount of consumption of seafood (M. K. Jones & Oliver, 2009) whereas in case of China it is between 18% to 56%. Individuals getting infected by Vv all over the world is less when contrasted with other species of Vibrios, however the USA has notable number in terms of infection and diseases caused by Vv.