Cat-to-Human Orthopoxvirus Transmission, Northeastern Italy

摘要

To the Editor: Kurth et al (1) recently described a cowpoxvirus chain of transmission from rat to hu-man through an elephant in Germany. Zoonotic cowpoxvirus infections are well known in Europe (2 ,3). This vi-rus can infect many animal species; serologic evidence of infection may approach 10% in cats in western Eu-rope (4,5). Zoonotic orthopoxvirus (OPV) infection has been reported in several European countries, but it is rare south of the Alps, and no ex-tensive description of cases is avail-able for Italy. We describe 2 cases of zoonotic OPV in Friuli, northeast-ern Italy, in veterinary personnel scratched by cats.