The deaths indicated a mortality rate of 47 percent which was far higher than that of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which infected some 8000 people worldwide last year, killing nearly 800, including 33 in Singapore.

The health ministry's director of medical services K. Satkunanantham revealed in a speech at a conference on melioidosis here Thursday, Sept 16, that the high incidence of the illness prompted an investigation earlier this year.

Authorities feared at that time the soil-borne bacteria that causes melioidosis had been turned into a biological weapon, but the investigation proved otherwise, he said in his speech posted on the health ministry's website.

Burkholderia pseudomallei, a soil-borne bacteria that causes melioidosis, has been classified by many countries, including the United States, Britain and Australia, as a potential biological warfare agent.

An average 67 melioidosis cases and 12 deaths -- or a mortality rate of 18 percent -- are reported annually in Singapore over the past 10 years.

But alarm bells were raised when 11 cases were reported in the space of just one week in March following a heavy rainfall.

From January to July this year, 57 cases were reported and 23 died, Satkunanantham said.

"Aside from looking at the possible places where infection could have been acquired, we also considered the possibility, although remote, that the cluster of cases had been intentionally caused," he said.

Isolates taken from the patients were sent to the Defence Medical and Environmental Research Institute for genetic finger printing.

Results showed the DNA of the bacteria cells were "genetically disparate", which meant they could not have been prepared in a laboratory, he said.

Melioidosis is mainly found in Southeast Asia and northern Australia and is caused by the soil bacteria rising to the surface during heavy rainfall and mixing with water.

It can cause fever, pneumonia, anorexia, chest pains and muscle soreness.

                                                      Home