Mystery Sheep-Derived Disease Jumps to Humans

Researchers at King’s College London identified a new bacterial species with potentially concerning implications.

A 55-year-old shepherd was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital with a fever. Blood tests showed they were infected with two types of bacteria, one of which could not be identified by typical laboratory techniques. The source of infection was traced to sheep “drenching,” where a shepherd administers antiparasitic medicine to sheep orally via a syringe, in this case, without wearing gloves.

To identify the mystery sheep bacterium, a MALDI-TOF Biotyper (used to identify microbes) and whole-genome sequencing were performed at Oxford Nanopore Technologies. After analysis, researchers found it was an entirely novel species. They named the new species Variovorax durovernensis after the place the shapard lived, Canterberry. Variovorax bacteria are generally soil-dwelling species, and this is the first documented human case of infection. This raises new concerns about atypical infections amid growing antibiotic resistance.

The paper also highlights the effectiveness of nanopore sequencing for clinical practice. It's fast, efficient, and easy to perform, and can be provided directly to hospitals, saving time by eliminating the need to send samples to specialist laboratories for analysis. As joint author Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell notes, “As this technology becomes more widespread, we will probably discover more new microbes and uncover new ways they interact with our bodies and cause infections.”