4-year-old gets rare bacterial infection from air freshener

“Before all this started we had a normal, healthy 4-year-old."

When Texan couple Josy and Dustin Baker's 4-year-old daughter Lylah suddenly became so sick she could no longer walk, had no idea why. Lylah contracted a rare bacterial infection known as melioidosis, from a common household item and has been fighting off her illness ever since. But in May 2021, the parents saw signs in Lylah that something wasn’t right, starting with a low-grade temperature and “just a typical regular stomach virus that kids get.” Josy and Dustin brought her to the hospital and within days she was unable to walk or hold her own head up, as Dustin explained: "Our lives have turned upside down. She was a healthy little girl running around playing you know with all her animals, and then now we haven’t heard her talk." Lylah went through months of tests including a five-hour brain biopsy at Children's Medical Center in Plano, Texas and was ultimately diagnosed with melioidosis, which is caused by the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, People reports. Typically, Burkholderia pseudomallei is found in Northern Australia and Southeast Asia, so her medical team was puzzled how she picked it up all the way in Bells, Texas. Soon three other cases of melioidosis popped up in Kansas, Minnesota, and Georgia. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at the commonalities between the cases and traced the source back to an air freshener spray, the Better Homes & Gardens Lavender and Chamomile Aromatherapy Spray with Semi-Precious Gemstones. The air freshener has since been recalled.

"The air freshener has since been recalled."

The product was made in a factory in South India, although the CDC is still trying to figure out how the bacteria made its way into the air freshener. Authorities believe it might have come from the water used to make the air freshener or the 'semiprecious gemstones', which could have been contaminated before it was packaged. Josy remembers buying the air freshener about a month before Lylah got sick. She told People she could remember their family cat knocking the bottle over and spilling the product on the floor. Two weeks later, Josy said, their cat died. "We didn't know why then, but now we do," Dustin added. It wasn't just Josy and Dustin who'd purchased the air freshener. “When we saw the picture that the CDC posted, my mom called me and was like ‘Dustin, I use that in the house.’ Then my sister said that she had used it too." The family all got tested and seven additional members of the Baker family had antibodies to Burkholderia pseudomallei. "No one's gotten sick," Dustin said. "They were exposed, but their bodies fought it off." Medical professionals don’t know why some people get sick from Burkholderia pseudomallei and others don’t. But learning what was causing Lylah’s sickness was a relief to her parents.

"It wasn't just this shadow in the dark that was terrorising our baby."

It "almost felt like she could breathe again," Josy told People. "It wasn't just this shadow in the dark that was terrorising our baby." Lylah was released from the hospital in August after an intense regimen of physical, speech, and occupational therapy eight times a week. Josy even quit her job as a veterinary assistant to help care for her daughter. Lylah turned 5 at the end of October. “Before all this started we had a normal, healthy 4-year-old and a normal 1-year-old. We’ve had to adjust with having a daughter who now has special needs," Dustin says. “She has now began to be able to nod her head yes and no to a response to questions and she’s able to open her hands to things now,” he added. Lylah has started smiling again, much to everyone's joy: “Seeing all of these smiles has made it a lot better, a lot easier on us."