Public health
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Fourth flesh-eating bacteria death reported in Florida this season
Health officials say another person died after contact with a bacterium that can become a necrotizing infection. Warm salt water is the usual setting.
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FLORIDA: A fourth person has died this season after an infection tied to the bacterium that can develop into so-called flesh-eating disease, state health reporting compiled by WFLA shows.
Vibrio vulnificus lives in warm coastal water. Most people who wade never get sick. People with open cuts, liver disease or weakened immune systems are the ones who fill the case log every summer.
The Department of Health typically updates county-level counts without naming patients. Bay News is not publishing a beach-closure list that the state has not posted.
If you have a wound, stay out of the Bay until it closes. That is the entire public-health message, and it does not change because it is Labor Day.