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(CNN) - A 63-year-old man in Germany died after contracting a rare infection when his dog licked him.
Doctors have warned pet owners to seek urgent medical advice if they have unusual symptoms similar to those of the flu after the strange case, the details of which have been published in an article in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine.
The infection of the previously healthy man was caused by capnocytophaga canimorsus , a bacterium that is commonly found in the mouth of dogs and cats, according to the report. It is transmitted to humans only in rare cases.
The bacteria can be transmitted through an animal bite, but the man had not been bitten.
"His dog, his only pet, had touched and licked him, but had not bitten or hurt him in previous weeks," reads the article, prepared by doctors at the Red Cross Hospital in Bremen, Germany.
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At first, the man reported flu-like symptoms and then developed severe sepsis and fulminant purpura, an acute disorder that causes blood spots, bruises and skin discoloration, as well as necrosis.
The man was treated in intensive care, but his health continued to deteriorate and he died of multiple organ failure, according to the authors.
"Pet owners with banal symptoms, for example, similar to the flu, should urgently seek medical advice when the symptoms are unusual," the doctors wrote.
In May, a woman in Ohio had her legs and hands amputated after a rare infection of the capnocytophaga canimorsus bacteria.
Doctors say the infection probably occurred when his German shepherd puppy licked an open wound.
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And last year, surgeons amputated parts of the nose and limbs of a Wisconsin man, including hands and feet, after the same bacteria entered his body.
The type of bacteria, capnocytophaga canimorsus , is “completely normal flora of a dog's mouth and generally does not cause any significant disease. However, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong patient… it can lead to serious infections, but very, very rarely, ”said Dr. Stephen Cole, professor of veterinary microbiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania
Pets