Burkholderia pseudomallei infection in a healthy adult from a rural area of South India.

Melioidosis is an emerging disease producing protean manifestations, and is more common in alcoholics and diabetics. The disease can be a trivial localized lesion or a fatal septicemia. Early diagnosis and appropriate antimicrobial treatment greatly reduces the mortality rate. We report a case of localized form of the disease in an elderly male with no known predisposing medical disease who responded well to oral amoxycillin-clavulanic acid and cotrimoxazole treatment.

Fatal septicemic melioidosis in young adult

Melioidosis caused by B. pseudomallei remains dormant for months, years and even decades but becomes active when host is immunocompromised by drugs or disease including diabetes mellitus. Patients with diabetes mellitus shows a severe serious presentation of melioidosis. This is a case report of a 26 year old man with diabetes mellitus presented with fever, shortness of breath, left loin pain, dysuria and haematuria. The outcome of this melioidosis case and differential diagnosis are discussed

Multifactorial pathogenic mechanisms of Burkholderia pseudomallei as suggested from comparison with Burkholderia cepacia.

With the purpose to elucidate the pathogenesis of disease due to Burkholderia pseudomallei some biological and biochemical properties of this species were studied in comparison with B. cepacia, since the difference in the level of virulence between the two species is remarkable despite of their toxonomic closeness. B. pseudomallei was distinct from B. cepacia in the capability to grow under anaerobic conditions, with positive nitrate respiration, excretion of high-molecular polysaccharides into liquid culture, and cytotoxicity against cultured tissue cells. From these observations together with our previous finding that B. pseudomallei can grow and survive in an acidic environment, we suggest multifactorial mechanisms for the pathogenesis of melioidosis due to B. pseudomallei.