In Houston, Texas, strange deaths keep occurring that both have to do with one thing: a flesh-eating bacteria.

According to local officials, 49-year old Nathan Zuvic died from an infection in relation to vibrio, a bacteria found in sea water. Vibrio can enter the body through an open wound when in sea water or by eating shellfish. It tends to only affect people with immune system issues. Zuvic, who had liver complications, had been reportedly seen wade fishing days before he passed.

“I had never heard of it before. He cut his foot in the salt water and he started complaining almost immediately that night from what his friends tell me, and as soon as he returned back to Houston he went to the hospital ” said Zuvic’s companion, Paul Hollandsworth.

Zuvic passed just days later after checking into the hospital.

Health officials cannot confirm that 100% of the death was caused by vibrio, but started to lean toward that conclusion when on Tuesday September 21^st, 2010, a Galveston woman, Ginger Ling, died just days after cutting herself while cleaning seafood. Ling also had immune system complications, due to the fact that she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis.

On Sunday, September 19^th, Ling was spotted buying different types of seafood from a grocery store.

“She’s worked with fish all her life with all seafood.” says daughter, Tammy Bage.

But this time while cooking, Ling hit her arm on the kitchen faucet, making a scratch up her arm. Later that night, Ling notified family of a burning sensation, and by Monday morning was in the hospital room.

“It had swollen up just several times of its normal size,” Bage said.

Ling’s arm was purple and black from the top of her arm to her bare knuckle. She died that Tuesday from what was a flesh-eating bacteria, possibly vibrio, which is bacterium.

Claimed by Dr. Daniel Musher, the head of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, vibrio grows stealthily and rapidly, in large numbers particularly during the summertime. In Galveston Bay, this particular bacteria is present in huge numbers, but rarely affects healthy people.

“The reason people haven’t heard about vibrio or vibrio vulnificus, thank goodness, it only rarely causes infections and almost never causes infections for someone who is in relatively good health,” said Musher.

Musher states that it is the most aggressive infection he has ever observed in his career, declaring that he hears of only a minimal number of cases every year.