Accidental Jorge Lobo's disease in a worker dealing with Lacazia loboi infected mice: a case report

Jorge Lobo's disease (Lacaziosis) is a subcutaneous infection of humans living in the Amazon region of Latin America, and in dolphins inhabiting the east coastal areas of the United States. The disease mainly affects people from rural areas living or working in close contact with vegetation and aquatic environments. Most patients refer having developed lesions after accidental trauma with plant thorns or insect bites. Inter-human transmission has never been confirmed suggesting that Lacazia loboi is acquired from environmental propagules.

We report the case of a 41-year-old woman from São Paulo, Brazil, a non-endemic area of Jorge Lobo's disease, with L. loboi skin infection most likely accidentally acquired while manipulating experimentally infected mice in the laboratory.

Because many patients with Jorge Lobo's disease do not recall accidental skin trauma before their infections, the possibility of accidentally acquired Jorge Lobo's disease through unnoticed broken skin should be considered during the clinical investigation of nodular skin diseases in people who have contact with the fungus or who live in endemic areas. This is the second report of animal to human transmission of this disease.