Melioidosis - Deadly to man and animals

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Fourteen people have died from Melioidosis in Queensland this year. Melioidosis is a deadly antibacterial-resistant disease caused by bacteria found in soil or mud after heavy rainfall or flooding.

Back when I was 16 years old I got a job in a Department of Agriculture laboratory in Tasmania. I used to prepare cow blood samples to be tested for Leptospirosis and Johne's Disease. I worked there for a year until I turned 17 when I was able to start my nursing career. During my training, I did see people in theatre with Hydatid cysts. I 2019d never heard of tropical diseases such as Melioidosis and Scrub Typhus.

I moved to Queensland to do my midwifery certificate after finishing my general training.

Years later I moved to Townsville and met my husband. At that time he was studying zoonotic diseases of rats. Zoonotic diseases are diseases, which rats can spread to people. I got to travel all over North Queensland and Far North Queensland collecting live native rats.

I had never heard of some of the diseases he was studying before. One was Melioidosis, which has been in the news a lot lately here in Queensland because of deaths in Cairns and Townsville after the floods up there. I've always been interested in researching and writing articles.

I wrote an article about Melioidosis which was published in the Australian Nurses Journal way back in 1981. The title was 'Melioidosis: a not so rare tropical disease'. At that time I researched the history of the disease. There is a lot more recent information about the disease now, although I think the history is interesting.



When I first moved to Townsville in the early 1970s I lived at Saunders Beach about 30 kilometres north of town. I drove home each night on the Bruce Highway. At the Bohle, I saw old billboard signs on the highway advertising lions, giraffes, tigers, elephants and monkeys.

I wondered about the signs because I knew Townsville didn 2019t have a zoo then but after a while the signs disappeared and I forgot about them. A few years later I had the opportunity to visit the old zoo site. We had a special permit to visit as part of the rat research and were allowed through the locked gates. I wandered around the area, the previous home of many exotic and native animals. The pits and cages and enclosures were still there but in a very dry dilapidated state.



I later discovered the site had been an Internationally recognised private zoo, bird sanctuary and crocodile farm, Mr Edmund St John Robinson, a crocodile hunter started the zoo in the 1920s.

I learned the zoo featured deer, bears, monkeys, tigers, lions, Australian native animals and a selection of crocodiles including Tarzan who was six metres long.

The zoo had some bad luck in 1962. On 28 February that year, a male orangutan (Sima satyrus) that had been in captivity in the zoo for four years since being brought from Borneo became very ill. His temperature was 103.6oF (39.7oC), and he had a slight swelling of his upper lip and a puncture wound in his mucous membrane. He had lost his appetite and was lethargic. The Government Vet came to see him and prescribed potent antibiotics, but he died at 8pm on 21st March. The post-mortem showed he died of the rare tropical infectious disease 2018Melioidosis 2019 (caused by a gram negative bacterium) which is often fatal to man and animal. The organism name was changed in 1992 to Burkholderia pseudomallei from Pseudomonas pseudomallei. It is found in contaminated soil and water and can cause abscesses in the lungs, liver and brain.

I was always interested in tropical diseases and went on to do a Masters in Public Health and Tropical Medicine and a Doctor of Public Health degree. I worked in Queensland Health in the Communicable Diseases Branch during earlier flood events in the State and they always put out warnings to people to be aware of staying out of flooded areas and to wear protective clothing and gumboots in contaminated soil.

The Health Department is putting out warnings again now after recent cyclone Alfred hit the area. Back in those old rat-catching days, I did catch the rare scrub typhus tropical disease, but that is another story.

I think Hydatid Disease is very rare now in Tassie but Melioidosis is still around in Queensland and the Northern Territory so take care and be aware.
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