A forgotten disease of Myanmar origin.

ABSTRACT

A 16-year old student from Taungoo presented to medical ward, Insein General Hospital with one month-long fever, weight loss and multiple abscesses and ulcers at the face, limbs and trunk. Examination revealed pallor, remittent fever and hepatosplenomegaly. Imaging showed multiple splenic abscesses. Wound swab cultures from ulcers revealed gram negative coccobaccilli with characteristic of Burkholderia pseudomallei. The diagnosis was melioidosis. Defeverese time was 13 days after treatment with intravenous ceftazidime and amikacin. Recovery was uneventful. This case warrants the clinician, in case of recalcitrant septicaemia, to consider melioidosis-originally discovered in Myanmar but uncommon now.