A 63-year-old man in Germany died from a sporadic infection he had after his dog licked him. The incident prompted doctors to warn pet owners to be aware of any unusual symptoms.
The patient, according to a new case report, was presented at Red Cross Hospital in the City of Bremen in Germany after three days of severe symptoms. He initially experienced flu-like symptoms, such as high temperature and breathing difficulties.
The patients' symptoms took a nosedive before he went to the hospital. Rashes bloomed on his face and had nerve and muscle pain in his legs. Closer analysis showed subcutaneous bleeding on his legs.
He also had kidney injury and liver dysfunction, hypoxia, lack of blood flow to the muscles, and he wasn't urinating. The patient did not have any headache or stiff neck linked with meningitis, nor had traveled anywhere he could have caught an exotic infection.
The doctors diagnosed him with a severe blood infection caused by the body's immune response and a blood clotting disorder that causes skin discolorations.
He was treated with an antibiotic cocktail designed to cover Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococci, and Neisseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenza. The symptoms, however, continued to decline and went into cardiac arrest but was successfully revived. He was then intubated and put on a respirator.
On the fourth day of the patient's hospitalization, the doctors finally isolated and identified the culprit called Capnocytophaga canimorsus.
That is not a rare microbe for dogs. However, it is only transmitted to humans very rarely - through dog bites to immunodeficient or otherwise compromised patients, such as alcoholics.
The man has not been bitten or injured by his dog, nor was he immunodeficient or otherwise jeopardized; in the weeks leading his illness, his dog had only licked him. It was enough to transmit the disease.
The patient's condition worsened over the days following his diagnosis in spite of an adjusted treatment regime. He had multiple organ failure and pneumonia. He eventually died of severe septic shock on the 16th day after admission.
Is it really fatal?
Nearly 25 percent of reported cases of C. canimorsus infection in humans is fatal, according to a paper published in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine.
The doctors, however, noted that the numbers do not signify the real world and that several cases are never reported, since the infection could come and go without the patient thinking they have anything else apart from the flu.
There are outliers among the rare cases reported that both doctors and patients need to note, according to experts.
The researchers said in their case report that pet owners with flu-like symptoms should urgently seek medical advice when their symptoms exceed those of a simple viral infection. Among the symptoms are severe breathing difficulties and red rash caused by broken blood vessels.
"Physicians [handling] with such patients should ask about contact with dogs and cats. They should consider C. canimorsus and purpura fulminans and the absence of animal bites or scratches, and any immunodeficiency," the researchers wrote.
"The clinician should [promptly] start empiric treatment with a penicillin [with a blend of] a beta-lactam inhibitor until a definite diagnosis is established," it added.