I have previously written about the bacteria Delftia acidovorans. In short, it can metabolize metals. You may find them in the environment. That's what led me to look into topics such as bioremediation, etc.
Lately, I have noticed an increase in the incidence of this bacteria. One of them caught my eyes as it was responsible for the patient's UTI. As you can see, the colonies shown on the CHROMagar are small and brown. They are unlike most of the usual colonies you would normally see in the media. A little search via Brave yielded the following results:
It's the usual story: an immunocompromised person gets the short end of the stick. The last source points out that many occurrences involve catheters on that list. In other words, D. acidovorans is more opportunistic than not.
Should we worry about it? Probably not at this stage. Our battles against infectious microbes are like cat and mouse games. Life eventually finds a way, sometimes unintentionally. That's evolution for you.
If I work for another eight years at my current position, I wonder what else will become the norm in that time?
Posted with STEMGeeks
