Cowpox virus transmission from pet rats to humans, Germany

Hartmut Campe, Pia Zimmermann, Katharina Glos, Margot Bayer, Hans Bergemann, Caroline Dreweck, Petra Graf, Bianca Kim Weber, Hermann Meyer, Mathias Büttner, Ulrich Busch, Andreas Sing, Hartmut Campe, Pia Zimmermann, Katharina Glos, Margot Bayer, Hans Bergemann, Caroline Dreweck, Petra Graf, Bianca Kim Weber, Hermann Meyer, Mathias Büttner, Ulrich Busch, Andreas Sing

Abstract

We describe a cluster of cowpox virus (CPXV) infections in humans that occurred near Munich, Germany, around the beginning of 2009. Previously, only sporadic reports of CPXV infections in humans after direct contact with various animals had been published. This outbreak involved pet rats from the same litter.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cowpox lesions on rats and humans during an outbreak in Germany, 2009. A) Rat named Shiva (strain named after this rat) with lesions on the right hind limb; it died 1 day later. B) Neck lesions of a girl without previous vaccinia virus (VV) vaccination. C) Neck lesion of the girl’s grandmother with a history of VV vaccination. Photographs taken by authors 13 days after purchase of the rats. Patient is the grandmother (patient no. 4); rat is rat no. 2.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Phylogenetic tree of the isolated cowpox virus (CPXV) Shiva strain (in boldface; named after pet rat shown in Figure 1, panel A; GenBank accession no. FJ654467), constructed by the maximum-parsimony method based on the partial sequences method based on the hemagglutinin (HA) gene, unrooted. BLAST search (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/Blast.cgi) confirmed the identification of this strain as a CPXV strain with a unique HA gene sequence. The highest identity of 98.1% was found for strain cowHA72 (accession no. AY902300), a CPXV strain isolated from an elephant in the Netherlands. Bootstrap values >50% are shown. Additional unique CPXV strains shown for comparison, by accession number: AY902307 (cowHA35e), AY902301 (cowHA82), AY902299 (cowHA70), AY902298 (cowHA68), AY902297 (cowHA52), AY902296 (cowHA51), AY902295 (cowHA48), AY902294 (cowHA46), AY902289 (cowHA47), AY902288 (cowHA41), AY902287 (cowHA40), AY902286 (cowHA37), AY902279 (cowHA76), AY902276 (cowHA23), AY902308 (cowHA38), AY902275 (cowHA22), AY902274 (cowHA21), AY902273 (cowHA81), AY902271 (cowHA19), AY902270 (cowHA18), AY902269 (cowHA17), AY902268 (cowHA16), AY902263 (cowHA15), AY902262 (cowHA34), AY902260 (cowHA13), AY902257 (cowHA09), AY902256 (cowHA07), AY902255 (cowHA63), AY902252 (cowHA73), AY944029 (CPV90_ger2), AY944028 (CPV91_ger3), AF377886 (cowpox virus), AF377885 (cpv-922-99), AF377884 (cpv-867-99b), AF377883 (cpv-667-94b), AF377877 (cpv-1218-00), AF375090 (cpx-ep-2), AF375089 (cpx-brt), AF375088 (cpx-90-5), AF375087 (CPX-90-1), AF375086 (cpx-89-5), AF375085 (cpx-89-4), and AF375084 (cpx-89-1).

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