A 17-year-old woman was infected with rat-bite fever, the rare, but treatable, disease that she contracted from pet rodents that lived in her bedroom, her doctors say.

Rat-bite fever was originally described as a disease of the poor, but these days most cases occur in lab workers or in children with pet rodents. It is a rare disease, with only 200 cases reported since 1839. Most cases of rat-bite fever involve a bite or scratch from a rodent, but there are several reports of infection without direct bacterial contact.

The young woman was admitted to hospital with pain in her right hip and lower back that had continued for two days and led to immobility. Over the proceeding two weeks, she had an intermittent fever, nausea and vomiting, and a pink rash on her hands and feet.   Her nausea and vomiting improved, but the fever continued, and she had tenderness of a joint in her pelvis, and pain in her right leg.

When doctors learned she had three pet rodents living in her bedroom, including one that had died three weeks prior to the onset of her symptoms, they administered a blood test for rat-bite fever, which came back positive.

The disease has a 13 percent mortality rate if left untreated, but after four weeks of antibiotics, the young woman made a full recovery, according to the report in the December issue of BMJ Case Reports.