U.S. health officials may have solved the mystery of how four people in different states came down with a serious tropical disease even though none had traveled internationally: an aromatherapy spray imported from India.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday that investigators found the same type of bacteria that causes the disease, melioidosis, in a spray bottle found in one of the patients’ homes.
The four people were from Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota and Texas. Two of them, one a child in Georgia, died.
The agency said it was testing to confirm if the bacteria in the