I was talking to my friend John this morning at my church – the ice arena – while the women were skating.

We talked about getting out of the rat race, and how it was nice we had wives to sorta support us, and he mentioned he was going to the Ekka today, and I said, beware the petting zoo, and got the usual response of, I never heard there was a risk.

As the Post Bulletin in Minnesota writes, every summer, there’s an E. coli outbreak originating from a traveling petting zoo, with the latest occurring at the Olmsted County Fair.

The report that at least 13 people, including three in Olmsted County, have been sickened by Escherichia coli O157:H7 after visiting the Zerebko Zoo Tran exhibit is a reminder that even healthy, well-cared-for animals can be vectors for disease.

The Minnesota Department of Health encourages the installation of hand-washing stations near animal exhibits and the display of posters on hand-washing. Some county fairs and festivals voluntarily comply, but we believe it should go a step further and make it a legal requirement to post signs and hand-washing stations at all livestock exhibits.

Kirk Smith, an epidemiology program manager with the state Health Department, said guidelines are sent to county fair and festival managers every year, but compliance is “modest to poor, so it’s really a frustrating issue for us.”

Five percent to 10 percent of children who get infected go on to develop severe complications, said Smith, pointing an 2012 outbreak in North Carolina, where a child died of an E. coli infection after visiting a county fair.

“If parents understand that there’s any appreciable risk from a bug that can cause kidney failure that’s fatal in 5 percent of the cases, they’ll manage that risk a lot better,” Smith said.

Best practices for planning events encouraging human-animal interactions

Zoonoses and Public Health

G. Erdozain , K. KuKanich , B. Chapman  and D. Powell

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zph.12117/abstract?deniedAccess

Educational events encouraging human–animal interaction include the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. It is estimated that 14% of all disease in the US caused by Campylobacter spp., Cryptosporidium spp., Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157, non-O157 STECs, Listeria monocytogenes, nontyphoidal Salmonella enterica and Yersinia enterocolitica were attributable to animal contact. This article reviews best practices for organizing events where human–animal interactions are encouraged, with the objective of lowering the risk of zoonotic disease transmission.

A table of petting zoo outbreaks is available at https://barfblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Petting-Zoo-Outbreaks-Table-4-8-14.xlsx.