septicemic melioidosis in a transplant recipient causing graft dysfunction

Melioidosis, an infectious disease caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, is endemic in the Northern Australia and South-East Asia. It is an emerging disease in the Indian subcontinent. Melioidosis tends to run a potentially lethal course in immunocompromised individuals and data in renal transplantation are scarce. The clinical presentation of melioidosis is diverse, mimicking several other infectious diseases. Diagnosis could be delayed in transplant recipients. Choice and duration of antimicrobial therapy, management of immunosuppression, and patient and graft outcomes are other issues to be addressed. We report septicemic melioidosis with pulmonary involvement in a 32-year old renal transplant recipient that caused acute allograft dysfunction.