Case reportFeline orthopoxvirus infection transmitted from cat to human☆
Section snippets
History
Three weeks before admission, a 56-year-old female patient noticed a small erythematous papule on the left side of her neck. Exploration revealed an initial scratch from a cat living in the patient's house. The animal had temporarily refused to eat but had shown no further symptoms. The patient was otherwise free of symptoms. Within 14 days the lesion enlarged, forming a central necrosis with inflammatory induration. Suspecting superinfected herpes simplex, valacyclovir was prescribed by her
Results
Laboratory tests revealed that the blood count was initially normal, but gradually leukocyte counts were increasing up to 22,500/μL (normal range: 4000-8000) with lymphocytosis of 4992/μL (1120-2410), monocytosis of 1664/μL (270-860), and an increase of natural killer cells up to 50% of total lymphocytes (6-29). Thrombocytosis was 471,000/μL (140,000-400,000), erythrocyte sedimentation rate was elevated with 32/64 mm Hg (up to 12/24); electrolytes, renal, and liver function tests were normal;
Discussion
The subfamily of Chordopoxvirinae of the family of Poxviridae is divided into 8 genera, of which the genus Orthopoxvirus includes vaccinia virus, variola virus, cowpox virus, and at least 6 other species such as monkeypox virus, ectromelia virus, camelpox virus, taterapox virus, and racoonpox virus.2 Besides viruses within the genus Orthopoxvirus, only members of 3 other poxvirus genera may cause human disease: parapoxviruses (pseudocowpox virus causing milker's nodule or paravaccinia);
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2012, Research in Veterinary ScienceCitation Excerpt :Sequence comparison as shown in Fig. 1, revealed that the A36R gene sequence of the isolate is most closely related to sequences EP1 and EP6 derived from infected elephants from Germany (Baxby and Ghaboosi, 1977), whereas CPXV isolates from the UK or Norway seem to form a distinct cluster. The HA gene was found closely related to Austrian CPXV isolates cpv-531, -667, and -610 from 1992, 1994 and 1997, which all have been isolated from diseased cats (Nowotny et al., unpublished), and a local human isolate from Styria from 2009, whereas the HA gene of the human isolate cpv-1218 from the Austrian federal state of Salzburg from the year 2000 (Hawranek et al., 2003) seems more distant. Interestingly other German or Italian isolates are rather unrelated supporting the facts of high variation among CPXV strains, and the finding of highly divergent regional clusters (Essbauer et al., 2009; Kaysser et al., 2010).
Respiratory and Thoracic Medicine
2012, The CatRespiratory and thoracic medicine
2011, The Cat: Clinical Medicine and ManagementDiazepam leads to enhanced severity of orthopoxvirus infection and immune suppression
2010, VaccineCitation Excerpt :Cowpox virus (CPXV) is known to circulate in European rodents [18] and occasionally leads to human infection. In most cases cat-transmitted such zoonotic infections are rather mild and restricted to single skin lesions [19], but severe and even lethal cases have also been observed [20]. There are no valid data on the incidence in humans, as there is no mandatory reporting and due to the self-limiting character many cases will remain undiagnosed.
Viral diseases
2009, Weedon's Skin Pathology: Third Edition
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Funding sources: None.
Conflicts of interest: None identified.