Man, 71, left fighting for life after catching rare bug when his pet Chihuahua licked him

A MAN was left fighting for his life in hospital after catching a rare bug from his pet Chihuahua.

The 71-year-old from La Gomera in the Canary Islands went to the emergency department after feeling short of breath and coughing up yellowish phlegm for two days.

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Prior to that, he’d suffered sudden bouts of diarrhoea, weakness and chills for five days, according to doctors at the Hospital Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.

A paper published to the journal Respiratory Medicine Case Reports said the 71-year-old lead “an active, independent life in a small town with his wife and pet chihuahua”.

A former smoker, he was also being treated for type 2 diabetes and and high blood pressure.

At the hospital, x-rays of the man’s chest showed “a dense opacity in the right mid-upper lung zone”.

This can indicate the presence of fluid in the lungs, thickening of lung tissue and inflammation or damage, according to a 2023 study published in the journal Springer Nature.

The patient was diagnosed with pneumonia – an infection causing inflammation in the lungs that older people can be particularly vulnerable.

It can cause coughing, shortness of breath and wheezing, a high temperature, aches and pains and confusion.

Doctors also found that he was suffering from septic shock.

This is the most severe form of sepsis – when the body overreacts to an infection in a way that can be deadly – causing a dangerous drop in blood pressure and organ damage.

It took the patient three weeks to recover from the infection in hospital and he was given an oxygen mask to help him breathe.

But he “showed good recovery at follow-up appointments in the following six months” after being discharged.

Though pneumonia is not an uncommon illness for older people, less than half of these cases are caused by a pathogen like bacteria, a parasite or virus, medics from the Hospital Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe wrote.

But in the 71-year-old’s case, doctors traced his severe pneumonia to Pasteurella multocida bacteria, a germ found in many dogs and cats.

“It is known to live commonly in the normal flora of the respiratory tract, and probably the digestive tract, of many wild and domestic animals, including more than 50 per cent of dogs and cats worldwide,” medics said.

P. multocida can cause infections in pet owners if they’re bitten or scratched by their furry friends, mostly skin infections.

In some cases, a bite or scratch can land pet owners with a respiratory tract infection.

However, the man told medics that he hadn’t been bitten or scratched by his Chihuahua.

Doctors suggested that the 71-year-old might have been infected with P. multocida bacteria after being licked by his pet.

They warned that sharing bed and regularly kissing or being licked by pets were “risk behaviours”, especially for elderly people and those with suppressed immune systems who might be more vulnerable to P. multocida infections.