Pseudomonas oryzihabitans sepsis in a 1- year-old child with multiple skin rashes: a case report
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2017
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BioMed Central
Abstract
Background: Pseudomonas oryzihabitans is a Pseudomonas bacterial organism rarely implicated in human infections.
The bacterium has been isolated in a few reported cases of neurosurgical infections and patients with end-stage cirrhosis,
sickle cell disease, and community-acquired urinary tract infections. Limited information exists in developing countries,
however, because of the lack of advanced microbiological tools for identification and characterization of this bacterium.
This case report describes the isolation of a rare Pseudomonas bacterium in a patient presenting with sepsis and skin
infection.
Case presentation: A 1-year-old girl was presented to a hospital in the northeastern part of Ghana with a 1-week history
of pustular rashes on her scalp and neck, which occasionally ruptured, along with discharge of yellowish purulent fluid.
The child is of Mole-Dagbon ethnicity and hails from the northern part of Ghana. Pseudomonas oryzihabitans was
identified in the patient’s blood culture using the 16S ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid sequencing technique. The rash
on the patient’s scalp and skin resolved after continuous treatment with gentamicin while her condition improved
clinically.
Conclusions: This finding suggests the potential of this bacterium to cause disease in unsuspected situations and
emphasizes the need to have evidence for the use of the appropriate antibiotic in clinical settings, particularly in rural
settings in Africa. It also brings to the fore the unreliability of conventional methods for identification of Pseudomonas
bacteria in clinical samples and thus supports the use of 16S ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid in making the diagnosis.
Description
This article is published by BioMed Central.
Keywords
Citation
Owusu et al. Journal of Medical Case Reports (2017) 11:77 DOI 10.1186/s13256-017-1230-6