A British teenager was infected with the rare disease rat-bite fever that developed from pet rodents living in her bedroom.
The 17-year-old, who made a full recovery, was admitted to hospital with pain in her right hip and lower back that continued for two days and led to immobility, according to the online journal BMJ Case Reports.
Rat-bite fever has been reported in writings dating as far back as 2300 years, and was originally described as a disease of the poor, but these days most cases occur in lab workers or in children with pet rodents.
The condition often goes unrecognised and undiagnosed - and only 200 cases of rat-bite fever have been recorded in the US since 1839.
Most cases of rat-bite fever involve a bite or scratch from a rodent, but there are reports of infection without direct bacterial inoculation.
For two weeks, the teenager had an intermittent fever, nausea and vomiting, and a pink rash on her hands and feet.
Her nausea and vomiting improved, but the fever continued, and she had tenderness of a joint in her pelvis, and pain in her right leg, the case report said.
The doctors learned that she had numerous pets including a dog, cat, horse and three rats.
The rodents lived in her bedroom, and one of these rats had died three weeks before the onset of her symptoms.
A blood test returned positive for Streptobacillus moniliformis - the most common cause of rat-bite fever.
The disease can have a mortality rate as high as 13 per cent, if left untreated.
The patient underwent four weeks of antibiotics, and after five days, her rash and fever disappeared, and the joint pain in her pelvis improved over the following weeks, and she made a full recovery.
