A 38-year-old man from the UK was left with an ‘extensive’ infection after being attacked by a stray cat – pictures show his discoloured yellow fingers after contracting the unknown infection
A UK man has baffled doctors after he developed a mysterious bacterial infection after he was bitten by a stray cat.
The 38-year-old endured “painful” hand swelling, puncture wounds and abrasions around eight hours after the feral feline attacked him. Doctors, who classed him as obese, said the man was rushed to hospital following the “extensive soft tissue” infection he contracted in 2020.
They studied his illness and recently published the findings in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, where they discovered a species of the bacterium Globicatella. Researchers, including those from Cambridge University Hospitals, treated the patient for a possible infection and issued him a booster dose of the tetanus vaccine.
He was also given oral antibiotics before he was discharged but he surprisingly returned to A&E just 24 hours later after spotting something was wrong with his left and right middle fingers. In a bid to stop the infection, medics decided to surgically remove the damaged tissue around his wounds and give him three other antibiotics.