Tag Archives: Zoonoses

Possums and zoonoses; should I worry?

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I awoke at 1:20 a.m. to the sound of two possums apparently raping each other.

They prefer to do it on the tin roofs that grace the homes in Brisbane.

It’s not like cats in Kansas, it’s louder and sounds more violent.

But they’re so cute.

A helicopter sounded like it was investigating the possum-love and about to land on the roof; then a train went by; then another helicopter.

My semi-toilet-friendly daughter interrupted another night of Blade-Runner lite with an exceedingly wet bed.

I did laundry; at 3 a.m.

The Queenslander style of house favored by Brisbanites is on wooden stilts (because the river has a 100-year flood every 30 years) with a large balcony to capture cool breezes. Washing machines and clotheslines are on the balcony.

So are possums.

The possums piss and crap everywhere, every night, and are fearless: they will run into the house if the balcony door and several windows are not strategically closed.

Anyone know of zoonotic possum diseases I should be concerned about?

Gonzalo Erdozain: water and soap are for sanitizing; dog tongues are for licking dogs

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Scott Weese from Worms & Germs Blog said it best, “a dog’s tongue is not a medical device.”

According to an article by All Pet News (referencing a study by University of Florida Gainesville), in which risk for zoonotic transmission was obviously disregarded, treating human wounds with dog saliva leads to wounds healing twice as fast. It’s the perfect example of lab results being extrapolated into real world situations without proper knowledge or testing. Although dog saliva may have antibacterial properties and Nerve Growth Factor, you can’t conclude from lab-controlled experiments, using purified concentrated compounds, that a dog licking a wound is beneficial.

Lefebvre et al. (2006) published a paper titled “Prevalence of zoonotic agents in dogs visiting hospitalized people in Ontario: Implications for infection control,” in which zoonotic agents were isolated from 80 out of 102 (80%) dogs.

Clostridium difficile, was the most prevalent agent, isolated from 58 out of 102 (58%) fecal specimens, 71% of which were toxigenic. Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase Escherichia coli was isolated from one dog, extended-spectrum cephalosporinase E. coli was isolated from three dogs, and organisms of the genus Salmonella were isolated from three dogs.

Common sense would state that if you use your dog’s saliva for wound healing, you probably wouldn’t be washing it after being licked. This would increase the risk for wounds in general to get infected, but if your wound is on your hand, you are also at a higher risk of getting you and others (via cross-contamination) infected with a zoonotic disease. I don’t know about laboratory dogs, but I know my dog spends a lot of time licking herself, including her rear end. So as cute as those images of dogs licking their owner’s face look on TV, I keep my dog’s tongue away from me.
 

Measures to prevent disease associated with animals in public settings, 2011

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Run a petting zoo? A state fair? Farm visits? Then this is the most comprehensive summary of everything to be done so people don’t barf.

It’s a tad more than signs that say, “Wash your hands.”

The National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians, Inc. (NASPHV) along with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and a bunch of other public and animal health groups have updated guidelines for interacting with animals. The summary is below. The complete report is available at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr6004a1.htm?s_cid=rr6004a1_e&source=govdelivery.

Our table of petting zoo outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/petting-zoos-outbreaks.

Certain venues encourage or permit the public to be in contact with animals, resulting in millions of human-animal interactions each year. These settings include county or state fairs, petting zoos, animal swap meets, pet stores, feed stores, zoologic institutions, circuses, carnivals, educational farms, livestock-birthing exhibits, educational exhibits at schools and child-care facilities, and wildlife photo opportunities. Although human-animal contact has many benefits, human health problems are associated with these settings, including infectious diseases, exposure to rabies, and injuries. Infectious disease outbreaks have been caused by Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella species, Cryptosporidium species, Coxiella burnetii, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, ringworm, and other pathogens. Such outbreaks have substantial medical, public health, legal, and economic effects.

This report provides recommendations for public health officials, veterinarians, animal venue staff members, animal exhibitors, visitors to animal venues, physicians, and others concerned with minimizing risks associated with animals in public settings. The recommendation to wash hands is the most important for reducing the risk for disease transmission associated with animals in public settings. Other important recommendations are that venues prohibit food in animal areas and include transition areas between animal areas and nonanimal areas, visitors receive information about disease risk and prevention procedures, and animals be properly cared for and managed. These updated 2011 guidelines provide new information on the risks associated with amphibians and with animals in day camp settings, as well as the protective role of zoonotic disease education.
 

onzalo Erdozain: Real Housewives of Miami practice food safety and zoonotic diseases prevention, style

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I couldn’t care less about Real Housewives of Miami, however I will admit one of the wives got something right – her use of hand sanitizer after visiting a pig farm.

Petting zoos and farms have all been linked to different kinds of outbreaks, from E. coli to salmonella, so when petting an animal, either wash your hands or sanitize them. However, if you are going to season a whole pig in your kitchen, don’t use your oven mitts and dish towels to hold it and then place those same items on your countertop. Always use separate utensils for raw and cooked foods, including cutting boards if possible.

Really, I just happened to walk into my living room as the events unfolded. Word.

The truth about sleeping with cats and dogs

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It was a come-and-meet-a- real-live Canadian event when I first met Amy in Kansas in 2005, and when I first told her that sleeping with her dog was a microbiological risk.

I also told her French food was overrated and she shouldn’t eat rare hamburgers.

She asked me out on a date.

In a study to be published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, veterinary scientists say sleeping with your pets increases the chances of contracting everything from parasites to the plague.

Andrew Schneider of AOL News reports most U.S. households have pets, and more than half of those cats and dogs are allowed to sleep in their owner’s beds.

Personal note: our dogs do not sleep in the bed, but the cats do, primarily in the winter when it’s too cold to go outside; in the summer we are of no use and the cats can disappear for days.

Drs. Bruno Chomel, a professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Ben Sun, chief veterinarian for California’s Department of Health, say they wanted to raise the attention of people, as sleeping with a pet is becoming quite common, and there are risks associated with it, even if it is not very frequent.

The authors found that "the risk for transmission of zoonotic agents by close contact between pets and their owners through bed sharing, kissing or licking is real and has even been documented for life-threatening infections such as plague, internal parasites" and other serious diseases.

This study and several others show that disease from cats is far more prevalent, and often more serious.

The number of cats snuggling up with their owner is far greater, which may explain the larger number of people acquiring feline-spawned diseases, Chomel explained.

Sharing our resting hours with our pets may be a source of psychological comfort, but because pets can bring a wide range of zoonotic pathogens into our environment, sharing is also associated with risks, the authors of the current study reported.

• A 9-year-old boy from Arizona got the plague because he slept with his flea-infested cat.
• A 48-year-old man and his wife repeatedly contracted MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which their physicians eventually attributed to their dog. The animal "routinely slept in their bed and frequently licked their face," the California experts reported.
• A Japanese woman contacted meningitis after kissing her pet’s face.
• A study published last August in the journal Pediatrics tracked an outbreak of salmonella in 79 people between 2006 and 2008 that was caused by contaminated meat in dry cat and dog food.

Half of the victims were children, who CDC investigators said "might also have played with the pet food and then put their hands — or the food itself — in their mouths."

Live animal imports into America: agencies need better collaboration to reduce the risk of animal-related diseases

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The United States legally imported more than 1 billion live animals from 2005 through 2008. With increased trade and travel, zoonotic diseases (transmitted between animals and humans) and animal diseases can emerge anywhere and spread rapidly.

That’s a lot of animals.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded the statutory and regulatory framework for live animal imports has gaps that could allow the introduction of diseases into the United States. Specifically:

(1) The Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has regulations to prevent the importation of live animals that may pose a previously identified disease risk to humans for some diseases, but gaps in its regulations may allow animals presenting other zoonotic disease risks to enter the United States. CDC has solicited comments in advance of a rulemaking to better prevent the importation of animals that pose zoonotic disease risks.

(2) The Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has regulations to prevent imports of nonnative live animals that could become invasive.

GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and the Interior develop a strategy to address barriers to agency collaboration that may allow potentially risky imported animals into the United States and jointly determine data needs to effectively oversee imported animals.

Feeding birds on Thanksgiving

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I enjoyed a nice thanksgiving with my family in Wichita this year. After an enjoyable Thanksgiving lunch, complete with turkey, potatoes, green been casserole, and all the holiday staples, we decided to walk off our turkey coma by visiting the park. My parents live close to Sedgwick County Park in Wichita, KS; we use the park a lot mainly to walk the dog, but they have great running trails and nice playgrounds for when my two younger cousins come over. 

I got a free bag of cat food from school and had planned on feeding the ducks and geese that live on the ponds located within the park. We loaded my two cousins up in the car and headed to the park for some bird-feeding on turkey day. The birds at the park are quite tame and will get very close if you offer them food. Naturally, they enjoyed the cat food thoroughly. I wasn’t content to just feed them; that became boring after awhile. I decided a fun challenge would be to try to pick up one of the birds. (I’ll admit I’ve done this before at parks). I’ve worked with poultry in undergrad, so I felt that if I could pick up a turkey and carry it, surely I could pick up a goose or duck. First I coaxed the birds to eat out of my hand, and then after slowly sneaking closer to them just grabbed them up like little footballs. 

The kids thought it was hilarious, but I don’t think my parents/uncle and aunt were all that excited. Mom looked at me and said, “Those birds are filthy, I thought you knew better not to touch them!” Yes, indeed the birds are probably very dirty. They could’ve been (and probably were) infected with all sorts of bacteria and protozoa. Doug probably wouldn’t like that.  The smartest thing to do would to keep the birds’ feet out of your mouth; luckily this was not a hard task. I was also very careful not to put my hands near my mouth or on my face to contaminate myself. Ideally I would’ve used hand sanitizer after holding the birds, but unfortunately I was not thinking far enough ahead. My idea of vacation is having a good time, and most of the time that takes place in a germ-free environment. But if animals are involved (except in the case of reptiles), I tend to be a little more lax in my “germaphobe-ness.”

Just because animals carry germs doesn’t mean that we need to completely steer clear of them. However, the age of the person handling the animal must be taken into consideration. Kids under the age of 7 (or maybe even12) don’t seem to get the idea to keep your hands out of your mouth around the dogs. The bottom line (for all your petting zoo-lovers) is to be smart and wash your hands before and after handling animals.

 

Are petting zoos safe for kids?

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Last week, an E.coli outbreak involving at least 17 kids and 3 adults was linked to a Denver cattle show.

In light of that, a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News spent a day at the petting zoo at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo asking parents if they were worried about the "germs" their kids were being exposed to.

Some said yes; many others were confident in the precautions they were taking.

The stepfather of a three-year-old wasn’t worried. "We wash his hands," he said.

One mother said of her thumb-sucking two-year-old,

“I can’t keep her in a bubble. [But] it’s definitely something I think about every day with her.”

One of the largest petting zoo outbreaks of E.coli O157:H7 to date was linked to the North Carolina State Fair in 2004. A study of the outbreak by Goode and colleagues found,

Persons became infected after contact with manure and engaging in hand-to-mouth behaviors in a petting zoo having substantial E coli O157:H7 contamination.

Use of alcohol-based hand-sanitizing gels was not protective [against infection with E.coli O157:H7], although knowledge of the risk for zoonotic infection was protective.

Are petting zoos safe for kids? Maybe, if you’re aware of the risks and make sure they don’t eat any poop. But that might be easier said than done.

In the San Antonio article, Bill Marler was quoted as saying the threat of exposure to new and dangerous pathogens was too high for him to risk taking a small child or anyone with a compromised immune system to a petting zoo.

It’s your call.

Don’t sleep with dogs, warns chief vet

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The first time I met Amy was Oct. 24, 2005.

Ben and I had arrived in Manhattan (Kansas) a couple of days earlier, and our first official function was to serve as the entertainment at a meeting of the Canadian Studies club at Kansas State University. They wanted to see what real hosers were like, and Ben and I wanted free sandwiches, so it worked out well.

Amy said something about being a French professor and I said French food sucked.

At some point we got talking about dogs and food safety, and Amy mentioned that she let her dog sleep on her bed (below) and I said that was a microbiological nightmare.

Or something like that.

Fred Landeg, the U.K.’s acting Chief Veterinary Officer, said today dogs should not be allowed to sleep in their owners’ beds or even in the same room in case they pass on diseases, such as campylobacter and salmonella as well as exotic diseases.

"As a veterinary surgeon I would never advise people to keep dogs in their bedroom."

I was being dramatic when I first met Amy. Our dogs sleep in the bedroom but not on the bed.