A sweet iguana left a baby girl without cake and contracted a rare virus after biting the child before snatching a piece of cake.
During a family vacation to Costa Rica, a three-year-old girl was bitten on the back of her left hand by a lizard while enjoying a slice of cake on the beach. Although the child initially had a small wound that quickly healed, five months later it had developed into a rare bacterial infection called Mycobacterium marinum (M. marinum).
According to a case report presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases conference, M. marinum is normally only reported in fish, however it has been transmitted to humans through skin wounds. contact with contaminated fresh or salt water.
According to the Iowa State University Center for Food Security and Public Health, although the bacterium is not tuberculosis, it can cause tuberculosis-like illness and is known to cause skin lesions on the skin. fingers and hands.
The child was taken to a California hospital to be examined for a wound that had developed into a large, slightly painful red bump. Ultrasound determined the mass had grown into a fluid-filled lump, so the orthopedic surgeon had to remove the 2-cm-thick-walled mass from the wound before an infection could be detected.
The doctors studying the discovery say it may be the first time that a case of M. marinum infection has been reported from an iguana bite, given that most salamander bites are associated with salamander bites. other viruses such as staph (staphylococcus aureus) infections. Lead researcher Jordan Mah from Stanford University School of Medicine said the salamander’s cold-blooded body may be what stabilized the bacteria because M. marinum thrives at lower temperatures.
“The bite leads to the colonization of a bacterium rarely found in humans and demonstrates that iguanas can be carriers of harmful bacteria capable of causing infection,” Mah said in a press release. heavy. bacterial infection after exposure to unusual animals.”
