Mud Soccer Infects Australian Players

A game of “mud football” lubricated with stagnant water landed several Australian players in the doctor’s office after bacteria infected cuts in their legs, doctors reported on Tuesday. The soccer players suffered from infections by Aeromonas hydrophila, a bacterium common in water and soil.

A game of “mud football” lubricated with stagnant water landed several Australian players in the doctor’s office after bacteria infected cuts in their legs, doctors reported on Tuesday. The soccer players suffered from infections by Aeromonas hydrophila, a bacterium common in water and soil. The mud for the soccer game had been prepared by plowing up a field and pumping water onto it from the nearby Collie River, which was stagnant after a bout of dry weather, the doctors said. The players not only played in the mud, but most also took baths in the river afterwards, Dr. Hassan Vally of the University of Western Australia reported in the latest issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Cuts and scrapes from gravel and field stubble became infected with the bacteria and players developed pus-filled lesions, headaches, fever, rashes, muscle soreness and nausea. “Physicians should be alert to the possibility of Aeromonas wound infections, especially in warmer climates,” Vally said in a statement. (Source: Reuters Health, March 2004)