A simple lick from his dog cost a German man his life.
The paper warns pet owners to seek immediate help if they suffer flu-like symptoms after being licked by their animal.
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The dog owner’s infection was caused by what the paper refers to as capnocytophaga canimorsus. It’s a bacterium commonly found in the mouths of household pets like cats and dogs, and is rarely transmitted to humans.
The “previously healthy man” suffered from a three-day fever and progressive dysponea (difficult or laboured breathing).
He also developed facial petechiae (small red or purple spots caused by bleeding into the skin), dysaesthesia (painful, itchy, burning or restrictive feeling) in his right lower limb and myalgia (muscle pain) of his lower extremities.
Photos from the journal show the man’s hands and face covered in the red marks caused by petechiae.
The capnocytophaga canimorsus bacterium is typically only contracted by humans after a bite, but this man in particular wasn’t bitten by his dog, the report states.
“Pet owners with banal, for instance flu-like symptoms, should urgently seek medical advice when symptoms are unusual,” the doctors from Red Cross Hospital in Bremen wrote.
Apparently these symptoms are often experienced by patients with immunodeficiency, splenectomy or those who abuse alcohol, none of which the man had.
He suffered blood clotting and skin rotting before succumbing to a heart attack.
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A Dutch study states that this type of bacterium is so rare that only one in every 1.5 million people will get infected by it. A third of those die from it.
The type of bacterium is “completely normal flora of a dog’s mouth and usually doesn’t cause any sort of significant disease,” Dr. Stephen Cole, a lecturer in veterinary microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine said.
“However, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong patient … It can lead to severe infections,” he continued. “But very, very rarely.”
Back in September, a similar case occurred when a man needed his limbs amputated following a lick from his dog, Ellie.
Greg Manteufel nearly died after the lick transmitted the same bacterium.
Gravely ill, he lost parts of his arms and legs, as well as the skin of his nose and part of his upper lip.
The case, similar to the German man’s, is extremely rare and doctors at Manteufel’s hospital, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, had no explanation for why he got so sick.
Over the last 10 years there have been at least five other healthy people who have had severe reactions to the germ.
—With files from Associated Press.