JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Right now, researchers in Florida are working to build a tool to predict where a dangerous bacteria may be lurking in the water weeks in advance.
Florida health records show 22 cases of Vibrio vulnificus have been reported so far this year, including two in our area.
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A new case of Vibrio vulnificus was reported in Duval County in August. The case was contracted in Florida and the person is in their 60s.
Action News Jax also told you when St. Johns County reported a case in a person in their 70s in April.
The dangerous Vibrio bacteria live naturally in warm coastal waters. They can enter the body through eating raw or undercooked shellfish or open wounds exposed to floodwater, seawater or brackish water.
In May, Action News Jax told you one of our former anchors, Tera Lageman, survived a battle with Vibrio earlier this year. Lageman said she contracted it from eating raw oysters during a weekend getaway to Charleston, South Carolina.
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“The worst pain I’ve ever felt was when I had my daughter. This was 10 times worse than labor pains,” Lageman said.
University of Florida Environmental Engineering Professor, Dr. Antar Jutla, is one of the researchers working to develop VIGOR, which stands for Vibrio Infection Genomics for Outbreak Risk Forecasting.
Jutla said it’s an AI-enabled, satellite-based tool designed to predict which areas could be hotspots for Vibrio bacteria weeks in advance, similar to how meteorologists use forecasting tools to warn about severe weather or hurricanes.
“Our hope is that we will be able to predict at least two weeks in advance and at four kilometer resolution, so that like people who are going to beaches, who are eating raw seafood, they can make their own informed decisions as to whether what is good for them,” Jutla said.
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Jutla said VIGOR will use satellite data, including sea surface temperature and nutrient levels, plus information like population and how busy the beaches are, to determine a risk score for a particular area. The goal is for VIGOR to be a real time, alert platform for officials and the public.
“Most of our system right now is reactive, meaning that we let things happen and then we react to that event. So we want to change that reactive paradigm to an anticipatory, decision-making paradigm. And that’s, that’s where we are basically building this VIGOR system for,” Jutla said.
The project is a collaboration between UF and the University of Maryland, supported by a $3.6 million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health.
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