File:Orf virus infection on thumb.jpg

A thumb with two denuded orf lesions (eroded vesicles with an erythematous base and white halo).

In May 2004, an adolescent boy aged 16 years was bitten on the left hand by a healthy-appearing sheep that he was grooming for a county fair in southwestern Illinois. The sheep had been vaccinated against orf virus 1 week before the patient was bitten. Three weeks after he sustained the bite, the patient went to his primary-care physician with three nonpruritic, painless vesicular lesions on his left thumb, the largest of which was 1.5 cm in diameter. Two lesions were eroded vesicles with an erythematous base and white halo; the remaining periungual lesion around the nail was still intact.

Source:Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of January 27, 2006 / 55(03);65-68 [1]

Photo credit:CDC

This image is a work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, taken or made as part of an employee's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.