Acute Tetraplegia Caused by Rat Bite Fever in Snake Keeper and Transmission of Streptobacillus moniliformis.

We report acute tetraplegia caused by rat bite fever in a 59-year old man (snake keeper) and transmission of Streptobacillus moniliformis. We found an identical characteristic bacterial pattern in rat and human samples, which validated genotyping-based evidence for infection with the same strain, and identified diagnostic difficulties concerning infection with this microorganism.