A dog licked a healthy man. The man died within weeks after suffering horrifying flu-like symptoms, severe sepsis, kidney failure and brain swelling
- Rare infection that killed German man was caused by the Capnocytophaga canimorsus bacteria, found in saliva of dogs and cats
The 63-year-old man showed up in hospital with a burning sensation in his left leg and muscle pain in both. His flu-like symptoms were severe, with laboured breathing for three days.
He had petechiae, or rounds spots on the skin that look like rashes as a result of bleeding capillaries, which made his legs look discoloured.
The patient’s heartbeat was stable, doctors said, even though he was running a temperature of almost 39 degrees. His belaboured breathing caused an inadequate supply of oxygen to his tissue. His failing kidneys were not producing urine, researchers wrote.
But doctors had no idea what was wrong with him. He had not recently been in hospital. They suspected some kind of bacteria, but he didn’t have any open wounds and he didn’t have meningitis.
It wasn’t until his fourth day in hospital that a blood test revealed that the man had a type of bacteria found in the saliva of healthy dogs and cats. It’s a kind of bacteria that’s usually only transmitted to humans if they are bitten.
But the German man is dead because his dog licked him.