Published on
Updated
Reading 1 min.
In Costa Rica, a young Californian woman, bitten by an iguana, developed an extremely rare skin infection – nicknamed the “disease of aquariums.” Explanations.
It was during a trip to Costa Rica that the little girl, a cake in her hand, was bitten by an iguana at the level of her left middle finger. If the reptile escaped unscathed – it fled with the sweet snack – the young girl ended up with a nasty infected wound, which degenerated.
A two centimeter cyst on the girl’s hand
At first glance, the wound seemed superficial, it healed after two weeks. But it got worse in the months that followed. Indeed, five months after the bite, the parents noticed a kind of big bump on their daughter’s hand.
According to the first doctor consulted, it was only a “simple harmless cyst”. But, faced with the evolution of the bump, the parents asked for a second opinion. The doctor then decided to operate on the girl and remove this 2 centimeter mass.
Scientists took a closer look at this lump in the lab and found that the child had “a rare Mycobacterium marinum infection“, a mycobacterium that commonly causes infection in aquatic animals.
Fish tuberculosis: a first after an iguana bite
This infection is also commonly called the “fish tuberculosisand is much rarer in humans. Typically, when a human becomes infected, it is after a wound has been exposed to bacteria in the water.
So it could be the “first case of Mycobacterium marinum infection in humans following an iguana bite“.
Fortunately, the majority of infected humans recover quickly with drug treatment.
On a daily basis, simple preventive measures such as wearing gloves when handling aquariums and/or fish and carrying out an antisepsis (an operation aimed at eliminating micro-organisms in living tissues) by cases of exposed skin lesions would prevent the occurrence of this infection.