(Mirror Daily, United States) – In September, a Texas woman landed in hospital after eating two dozen raw oysters.
Doctors’ first thought was that she may have had an allergic reaction, but blood tests showed that she contracted a flesh-eating bacteria from the raw shellfish.
One of the woman’s friends said she shucked and ate the raw oysters a day before ending up in the hospital. Around 36 hours later, the woman was diagnosed with severe respiratory distress and doctors found a strange rash on her limbs.
The woman’s health rapidly declined from bad to worse. Blood tests revealed that she had vibrio, an infection that can be deadly.
“It’s a flesh-eating bacteria. She had severe wounds on her legs from that bacteria,” the woman’s friend recalled.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that you can get vibrio if you consume raw or undercooked shellfish or if you have an open wound and you enter the sea.
The Texas woman has done both. After 21 days, she was dead.
Raw Oysters Can Be Deadly
Doctors were surprised to find how much the woman was able to fight for her life. On Oct. 15, she died. Her family recalls that she was “bigger than life,” a deeply caring person that loved her family and used to laugh a lot.
The woman’s boyfriend and her friend are now trying to raise awareness about the disease. They said they would have wanted somebody else to inform them about the risks. That way, their friend would have probably still been alive.
Doctors explained that the deadly bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus contaminates oysters since the tiny animals act as filter feeders. As they take in seawater, they accumulate the harmful bacteria. In addition, the bacteria tends to multiply in warm waters, so the shellfish from the Gulf of Mexico and other warm waters tend to contain a large amount of the bacteria.
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