Orf, also known as contagious ecthyma or contagious pustular dermatitis, is a viral skin infection caused by a parapoxvirus (1). It typically manifests as a nodule of the hands that heals spontaneously within 3–6 weeks, but other sites such as the head and scalp, are occasionally involved. Orf is common among persons with regular contact with sheep and goats, including farmers, butchers and vet...

A 27 year-old man was referred to the dermatology department for two recent ulcerations of the shaft of the penis. There were regularly edged, indurated, eroded nodules measuring 15 and 8 mm in diameter, with fibrinous surface and serous exudate (Fig. 1). He had no pain, no fever and no lymphadenopathy, was recently married and reported that he did not have any previous disease and that his wif...

The orf virus (ORFV) is among the parapoxvirus genus of the poxviridae family, but little is known about the proteolytic pathways of ORFV encoding proteins. By contrast, the proteolysis mechanism of the vaccinia virus (VV) has been extensively explored. Vaccinia virus core protein P4a undergoes a proteolytic process that takes place at a conserved cleavage site Ala-Gly-X (where X is any amino a...