Don’t let your dog or cat lick your face or wounds.
A 63-year-old man from Germany has died because of a rare infection traced back to a lick from his dog.
In a paper published by the European Journals of Case Reports in Internal Medicine, doctors are now warning pet-owners to seek urgent medical advice if they’re experiencing severe flu-like symptoms.
“Pet owners with flu-like symptoms should urgently seek medical advice when their symptoms exceed those of a simple viral infection, which in this case were severe dyspnoea and petechiae,” writes the report’s lead author Naomi Mader.
The disease contracted by the man, who was admitted to Red Cross Hospital in Bremen, Germany, was due to the bacterium capnocytophaga canimorsus. It’s found most commonly in the mouths of cats and dogs, and is transmitted to humans in rare cases, usually through an animal bite.