This may be the grossest eye pic ever-but the cause is what’s truly horrifying
Ars Technica • • health
Key Points:
- A healthy 63-year-old man in New England developed a severe hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKP) infection that spread to his liver, lungs, brain, and eye, causing extensive organ damage including panophthalmitis and brain lesions.
- hvKP is a highly aggressive bacterial strain identified in the 1980s, known for causing metastatic infections in healthy individuals, starting with liver abscesses and spreading through the bloodstream to multiple organs.
- Diagnosis of hvKP is challenging due to lack of definitive tests; the string test, which measures bacterial stickiness, was positive in this case, supporting the hvKP diagnosis.
- Despite effective antibiotic treatment over nine months, the man's eye damage was irreversible, leading to
