Texan dies of rare infection after eating oysters, officials say. Should you worry?
A man recently fell ill and died after contracting a rare infection from raw oysters, Texas health officials say.
The man ate the oysters at a restaurant Aug. 29, then died at a hospital during Labor Day weekend, officials told The Daily News.
He was between 30-40 years old, the Galveston County Health District said in a news release.
While it’s fairly typical to serve oysters raw, officials warn that shellfish, and oysters in particular, can be riddled with a potentially deadly bacteria, vibrio vulnificus.
“Vibrio is a bacterium that naturally lives in coastal waters, including warm, salt water and brackish water,” health officials said in the release. “Individuals get infected with Vibrio by consuming raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters. Some get infected through exposure to salt water or brackish water through an open wound.”
Symptoms of infection may include nausea, cramping, diarrhea, vomiting, painful rash, lesions, fever and chills, according to the release.
Officials warned that vibrio infections are on the rise across the U.S. due to “unusually warm ocean temperatures this year.”
But does this mean it’s time to swear off shellfish?
Vibrio infections are rare, officials said, and when they do happen, it tends to be in people with underlying health conditions — liver disease, diabetes and weak or suppressed immune systems.
The man who died in Galveston had such conditions, officials said.
“He was taking some drugs that made him immunosuppressed,” Dr. Philip Keiser, of the Galveston County Local Health Authority, told KTRK. “He also had problems with his liver.”
Roughly 80,000 Americans are infected with vibrio vulnificus every year, and 100 people die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Officials did not name the restaurant where the man ate the oysters, but health investigators have visited the business and removed the contaminated oysters, Keiser told KRIV. Health officials told KRIV the restaurant is “on the island.”
“We’ve actually gone to the restaurant where he was eating, and we pulled the oysters from the shelf,” Keiser told the news outlet. “There are tags to them, so we can identify the lots, and the state is actually analyzing them to see if we can find the bug in a particular lot of oysters.”
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