Broward County, FL – A Broward County resident has become the fourth person in Florida to die this year after contracting a rare bacterial infection associated with coastal waters.<\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Health has recorded 21 cases of Vibrio vulnificus and four related deaths statewide in 2026.<\/p>\n
Two infections have been reported in Broward County, including one death. State records identified the person who died as an adult between 75 and 79 years old but did not release a name.<\/p>\n
The other deaths involved residents of Bay, Marion and Palm Beach counties. Miami-Dade County has reported two infections without any deaths.<\/p>\n
Health officials did not disclose how the Broward resident contracted the bacteria. Vibrio vulnificus naturally lives in warm coastal and brackish water, where saltwater and freshwater mix.<\/p>\n
People can become infected by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters. Infections may also develop when an open wound, recent tattoo or piercing is exposed to contaminated water.<\/p>\n
The bacteria is commonly described as flesh-eating because severe wound infections can cause necrotizing fasciitis, which destroys tissue surrounding an infected area.<\/p>\n
Symptoms may include fever, redness, swelling, pain, warmth, skin discoloration and drainage from a wound. Eating contaminated seafood can cause diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, fever and chills.<\/p>\n
Severe bloodstream infections can produce dangerously low blood pressure and blistering skin lesions. Florida health officials say those infections are fatal in approximately half of cases.<\/p>\n
Officials recommend avoiding raw shellfish, cooking seafood thoroughly and keeping open wounds away from coastal water. Anyone developing symptoms after seafood consumption or water exposure should seek medical treatment immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broward County, FL – A Broward County resident has become the fourth person in Florida to die this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,160636,5507,10822,28,249,251,250,54942,129403,666,2171,128783,4103],"class_list":["post-403830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-broward-vibrio","tag-death","tag-deaths","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-infection","tag-infections","tag-person","tag-resident","tag-vibrio-vulnificus-infection","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}