Toddler Contracts Gonorrhea After Eating Lab Cultures in Unusual Case
A three-year-old boy in San Antonio, Texas, contracted gonorrhea after consuming the contents of a lab dish containing the bacteria, a case report published in 1984 revealed. The incident highlights the potential for non-sexual transmission of the sexually transmitted infection and underscores the importance of laboratory safety protocols and vigilant supervision of young children.
The boy’s mother, a microbiology lab technician, routinely collected clinical samples from physicians’ offices. According too the report, she had her son with her while making these rounds and briefly left him unattended in the parked car after stopping at a grocery store to bring purchases inside. Upon her return, she discovered her son had accessed the backseat where she had placed the clinical cultures and ingested the contents of one petri dish.
The dish contained what is known as “chocolate agar,” a growth medium used to cultivate bacteria. Despite its name,chocolate agar contains no actual chocolate; its brownish hue comes from the addition of split-open red blood cells. The report noted the medium may have appeared appetizing to the child.
Doctors immediately tested the remaining material from the dish and identified Neisseria gonorrhoeae,the bacterium responsible for gonorrhea. They began monitoring the boy for signs of infection in his throat. Initial throat swabs, taken up to six days after the incident, were negative for the bacteria. Though, a test on the eighth day came back positive. The report did not detail whether the boy exhibited any symptoms, but often gonorrhea infections in the mouth and throat are asymptomatic. Potential symptoms can include swollen lymph nodes and throat redness or soreness, and untreated infections can lead to serious complications like bloodstream infections or immune system dysfunction.
Following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the time,physicians treated the boy with intramuscular injections of procaine penicillin G. It’s important to note that penicillin G is no longer a recommended treatment for gonorrhea due to increasing antibiotic resistance among N. gonorrhoeae strains in the U.S.The boy also received probenecid, mixed into ice cream, to enhance the antibiotic’s effectiveness by slowing its elimination from the body.
This treatment regimen “produced a prompt cure,” and subsequent tests confirmed the boy was free of the infection.
What sets this case apart is the unusual route of transmission. Gonorrhea is primarily spread through sexual contact, and infections in children often raise concerns about potential sexual abuse. Though, in this instance, the infection stemmed from exposure to laboratory cultures.While laboratory-acquired gonorrhea has occurred before – including a case involving a lab technician infected in the eye – pediatric cases via this route are exceedingly rare.
“This case reminds us of the risks involved in leaving children unattended in automobiles,” the report authors concluded, adding
Why: A three-year-old boy contracted gonorrhea.
Who: The boy, his mother (a microbiology lab technician), and the doctors treating him.
What: The boy ingested lab cultures containing Neisseria gonorrhoeae after his mother briefly left him unattended in a car with the cultures.
how did it end?: The boy was successfully treated with procaine penicillin G and probenecid, resulting in a “prompt cure” and confirmation of the infection’s elimination through subsequent testing.
