An iguana bit a little girl and gave her an extremely rare infection called “fish tuberculosis”.
An American family was vacationing in Costa Rica. Their 3-year-old daughter, Lena, was quietly eating a piece of cake when an iguana rushed at her to bite into the cake and bit her finger on her left hand.
The bite then caused a rare infection. The iguana gave her a Mycobacterium marinum, which usually causes an infection in aquatic animals.
At high doses, the neurotoxin in question can cause convulsions or even cardiac arrest in humans.
The doctor misdiagnosed
Immediately following the bite, little Lena was treated in hospital.
Her wound was disinfected and she received antibiotic treatment to prevent salmonella infection.
The wound healed following two weeks. Five months later, the parents noticed a lump on his left hand, at the level of the bite.
The family physician diagnoses a “simple harmless cyst”. However, the ball continued to grow.
The doctor then decides to have the little girl operated on. The ball had reached 2 centimeters before being removed.
The ball is then extracted and analyzed in the laboratory. Doctors then discovered that the child had a rare Mycobacterium marinum infection, called “Fish Tuberculosis”.
His unique case will be presented at an upcoming scientific congress
This bacterium present in fresh or salt water rarely affects humans. It most often causes a tuberculosis-like disease in fish. The analysis reveals that the bacterium has caused tissue necrosis and significant local inflammation.
Lena then received a new antibiotic treatment, adapted to this bacterium.
His unique case will be presented at the scientific congress the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases which will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark from April 15 to 18.
