New Strain Of Bacteria Found! Experts Warn About Eating Shellfish

• comments
• 
• 

A new strain of bacteria found to be the leading culprit in shellfish contamination, and this could be the reason why more people who eat seafood are getting sick after eating "exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates." After studying oysters near the Atlantic coasts, a critical discovery was found out.

Researchers from the University of New Hampshire has discovered "Vibrio parahaemolyticus", a new strain of bacteria responsible for the contamination of shellfish. This causes abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting once consumed and in rare cases, some people even dies from consuming the lethal septicemia, Fox News reported.

Together with her colleagues, Cheryl Whistler have discovered the new strain identified as "ST631." Their findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Prior to this study, only a single bacteria was accused of food poisoning, which Whistler stated is increasing in New England. It is also the same bacteria responsible for over 40,000 cases in the United States each year.

Whistler said that it is usual in the region however, it's still unknown how it has become very harmful. The bacteria's genes are the same as with the ST36, the strain believed to have come from the Pacific Northwest and is responsible for the infections.

"It wasn't understood that there was a strain that lived in the Atlantic already that was causing increasing infections," Whistler said. "e knew people were starting to get sick more frequently by unknown strains. It wasn't clear if every person was getting sick by a different strain. Are there a hundred different strains making people sick or just a couple making people sick?"

The findings from the previous studies suggest that climate change has a big role in the dissemination of pathogens such as Vibrio parahaemolyticus. ABC News said that a report from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in August last year observed that warming water is associated with "waterborne food poisoning" and this usually results from consuming raw oysters.