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An unidentified Missouri man has developed a rare infection that has caused swollen lesions on the side of his face – and doctors believe that it comes from his domestic cat.
The 68-year-old man visited his doctor two months after the appearance of three large, unsightly buttons on the right side of his neck, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. After undergoing blood tests, the man was diagnosed with glandular tularemia, a rare disease caused by the bacteria Francisella tularensis that can cause fatal pneumonia in more than half of the cases.
As the lesions became progressively painful, the man endured them for weeks until he felt a fever of a week which eventually pushed him to get himself treatment. Doctors at the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis believe that the man first caught the disease from his outdoor cat, who died just two days before the onset of his symptoms. The bumps on the man's neck were actually the enlarged lymph nodes of the man, which swelled as the bacteria entered his body.
The New England Journal of Medicine © 2018.
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"Domestic cats can be infected by the consumption of infected prey and can transmit the bacteria to humans", Newspaper reports.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, humans can catch the bacteria when they handle an infected animal or drink contaminated water. Interestingly, bacteria can also be transmitted to humans by air, which can occur during landscaping activities, for example when a tractor or lawn mower runs on an infected animal.
Rabbits and rodents are particularly susceptible to bacteria, which can cause them to die in large numbers during an epidemic.
A person can develop symptoms between three and five days to two weeks after being infected, says the Mayo Clinic. Signs of the disease include swollen and sore lymph nodes, fevers, chills, headaches and exhaustion.
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Andrej Spec, co-author of the report, while the man's cat was suffering from feline tularemia, she was misdiagnosed by a veterinarian who did not perform the appropriate laboratory tests. In turn, the man was probably infected with the bacterium F. tularensis when administering the anticancer drug to the feline.
Fortunately, the man was treated with doxycycline, an antibiotic, and recovered completely in four weeks. His case now reminds us to seek immediate medical attention when unusual symptoms occur.
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