Melioidosis in lower provincial Cambodia: A case series from a prospective study of sepsis in Takeo Province

Abstract

Melioidosis is a severe infectious disease caused by the gram-negative soil bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. Melioidosis is well known to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand. However, melioidosis remains underreported in surrounding areas such as Cambodia. We report a case series of melioidosis in seven patients from Takeo Province, Cambodia. The patients, aged 24–65 years, were enrolled from May 2014 to May 2015 during a one year prospective study of sepsis at Takeo Provincial Hospital. They presented with fever, rigors, dyspnea, fatigue, diaphoresis, productive cough, and skin abscesses. Six of the seven patients were also hyponatremic. B. pseudomallei was cultured from the blood of six patients and the sputum of one patient. In this manuscript, we provide a detailed description of the clinical presentation, case management and laboratory confirmation of B. pseudomallei, as well as discuss the difficulties of identifying and treating melioidosis in low resource settings.

Author summary

In spite of the fact that Cambodia shares borders with well-known hyper-endemic areas for Burkholderia pseudomallei where thousands of melioidosis cases occur each year, only a handful of melioidosis cases have been described in Cambodia. This is due, in part, to the lack of appropriate diagnostic resources there and the fact that physicians are not familiar with the appropriate diagnostic and treatment algorithms. As a result, the true burden of melioidosis in Cambodia is drastically underestimated and confirmed cases are rarely treated properly. During a one year study of sepsis in Takeo Provincial Hospital in Takeo Province Cambodia, we enrolled 139 patients which included seven culture-confirmed cases of melioidosis. As part of our study, laboratory workups including blood gasses, blood chemistries and hematology are routinely performed as well as imaging and a detailed record of medications administered during treatment. As a result, our report describes one of the more well-characterized cohorts of adult B. pseudomallei infections from Cambodia, originating in a region that had relatively few documented cases previously. Additionally, our case series touches upon a number of challenges faced by resource-limited health systems addressing melioidosis in areas of high endemicity.