Melioidosis is common in the wet season and is contracted when cuts on the skin come into contact with contaminated soil or water. Health authorities issued a warning about the disease last week after the death of an elderly man. The condition can cause severe pneumonia or blood poisoning. People most at risk are those with poor immunity, lung or kidney problems and diabetes.
Doctors believe the increase in cases is due to the recent rain and flooding.
The health authorities also fear north Queensland is facing another outbreak of the potentially deadly rat disease, leptospirosis. The region was swamped with more than 250 cases last year and the notification rate has already topped 20 this year. The head of the World Health Organisation's leptospirosis laboratory, Lee Smythe, says a combination of a prolonged wet season and north Queensland's festering rat plague have doctors worried. We had much more flooding, the soil stayed very moist and when the soil stays moist and wet, the organism can survive for days to months in that soil and of course then there's a greater risk of people coming across the actual organism and being infected. After decades of secrecy, China has allowed the first ever look inside its network of re-education camps.