Why Are Flesh Eating Bacteria In Cape Cod Waters?

This week, news started circulating on local channels and across social media about flesh eating bacteria discovered in the waters of Cape Cod. Reportedly, one person contracted a flesh-eating bacteria known as Vibrio Vulnificus after swimming at a Falmouth beach last week. In response, health officials are warning people with certain health issues not to swim in Massachusetts coastal waters or eat raw shellfish.

Dozens of cases have been reported this year across the South and Gulf states and at least 10 people have died. While these cases are comparatively rare, they have a 20% fatality rate. Salty or brackish water can harbor Vibrio Vulnificus, which can enter the body through open wounds or cuts. If you’ve been to the beach and experience pain or redness at a wound site, that’s “your sign to get evaluated immediately,” says Northeastern University professor Brandon Dionne, a clinical pharmacist in infectious diseases. Dionne adds that people may also see blisters form and develop fevers and chills.

“It’s a particular risk to those who have underlying medical conditions, such as liver disease, [or are] immunocompromised from drugs or cancer. Even diabetes can increase the risk of this infection,” said Dr. Larry Madoff, medical director for infectious disease at the state Department of Public Health. However, it seems unlikely that the bacteria poses a serious threat to healthy individuals.

Setting aside the public health impacts, the presence of Vibrio Vulnificus this far north should be cause for much greater climate alarm. This bacteria is historically found in southern bodies of water like the Gulf of Mexico, dying off when it reaches colder waters. However, as reported by Sabrina Shankman of the Boston Globe, "Midsummer ocean temperatures were about 2.75 degrees warmer in the period from 2021 to 2025 than they were 20 years ago, according to data from an ocean temperature monitor in Woods Hole, near where the swimmer contracted the virus." David Hamer, an infectious disease expert at Boston University, says “With warmer water temperatures moving further north, it allows Vibrios to survive, during summer months in particular, at higher latitudes than it had previously."

Shankman's recent article continues, "Scientists has been watching as Vibrio vulnificus infections have climbed northward as the planet warms. Between 1988 and 2018, wound infections from the bacteria increased eight-fold (from 10 to 80 cases per year) in the eastern United States, and the northern limit of reported cases moved north by roughly 30 miles each year, according to a 2023 study published in the journal Nature." This is similar to the increase in tick-borne infections and diseases in New England, caused by longer warm seasons.

In 2023, experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a dramatic rise in babesiosis, a historically rare tick-borne disease, throughout New England. In Maine, where babesiosis was not previously considered endemic, incidence of the illness soared a whopping 1,422% in less than a decade. Reported cases in Maine jumped from 9 in 2011 to 138 in 2019. Last year there were more than 300 cases in Maine, according to preliminary data. 

As our summers continue to heat up on land, more humans will seek the cooling effects of water. Summertime crowds already flock to beaches and brackish estuaries to escape heat exhaustion, which especially affects the elderly and the very young. Where will those people go, when the land is too hot and the water breeds potentially-deadly bacteria? Into the shade of trees and wildlands, where the tick population is booming?

Our planet is sending us all the messages of crisis, and they are starting to affect our loved ones in immediate ways. Climate collapse is rapidly transforming from a future threat to a present reality. This is our time to fight, while there are still things left to fight for.