Undercooked fish laced with lethal bacteria leads California woman to lose her limbs

A 40-year-old woman in California was forced to have all her limbs amputated after eating an undercooked tilapia fish that was contaminated with a lethal strain of bacteria.

Laura Barajas, spent over a month in the hospital fighting the infection of "Vibrio vulnificus bacteria," before having all of her limbs removed from the lifesaving surgery.

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'She almost lost her life'

Anna Messina, Barajas' friend said, "It's just been really heavy on all of us. It's terrible. This could've happened to any of us." She added that Laura became sick after eating thefish she cooked that she bought from a local market in San Jose.

"She almost lost her life. She was on a respirator. They put her into a medically induced coma. Her fingers were black, her feet were black, and her bottom lip was black. She had complete sepsis, and her kidneys were failing."

Dr Natasha Spottiswoode, a disease expert told KRON, "The ways you can get infected with this bacteria are, one, you can eat something that's contaminated with it [and] the other way is by having a cut or tattoo exposed to water in which this bug lives."

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early September issued a health advisory and warning related to the increase in Vibrio vulnificus bacterial infection in the US due to increasing water temperatures.

The health organisation said people can develop this illness due to infected or uncooked seafood.

Watch |Global heating causing some fish species to shrink in size

What is Vibrio vulnificus?

It is a potentially dead bacterium that is commonly found in raw seafood and seawater. It leads to severe health risks.

According to the CDC, this bacteria thrives in warmer sea bodies. It is known to cause some 80,000 illnesses each year in the States.

Some symptoms of this bacteria include watery diarrhoea, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, and fever. Women can display redness, pain, swelling, warmth, discolouration, and discharge as the symptoms.

To avoid exposure to the Vibrio bacteria, the CDC recommends washing hands with water and soap after handling raw shellfish and cooking oysters or other shellfish before eating them.

(With inputs from agencies)

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