[Gpdd] [HEALTH] <salmonella from guinea pigs and other rodents>

Lydia G Boland lydiagboland at yahoo.com
Thu May 5 20:48:39 EDT 2005


My Mom just called me with concern because there was a news story on 
her local CBS station about kids getting sick from their pocket pets 
with bacteria resistant salmonella.  Her concern is that many people 
will start dumping their pets off at the shelters and they will not be 
able to find homes for them.  She knows we've never been sick from our 
pets, ever.  Here is a copy of the story and a link to it.  Hopefully 
our shelters and rescues will not be inundated with of our small 
friends =(.

Lydia

http://cbs5.com/health/health_story_125132159.html

CDC: Don't Kiss The Hamster
Health Officials Issue 'Pocket Pet' Warning

May 5, 2005 11:56 am US/Pacific
(AP)  Furry “pocket pets” like hamsters, mice and rats have sickened up 
to 30 people in at least 10 states with dangerous multidrug-resistant 
bacteria, health officials are warning.

It is the first known outbreak of salmonella illness tied to such pets 
and reveals a previously unknown public health risk, officials said.

Many of the victims were children; six were hospitalized for vomiting, 
fever and severe diarrhea. Some passed the illness to others. The germ 
they had was resistant to five drugs spanning several classes of 
antibiotics.

“This is likely an underrepresentation of how large the problem is,” 
because others who were sick may not have gone to doctors and not all 
labs do the kind of tests that would detect this germ, said Dr. Chris 
Braden, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.

Salmonella infections are common from reptiles, especially small 
turtles called red-eared sliders that are banned but have made an 
illegal comeback in several states in recent years. The 2003 monkeypox 
outbreak that originated in imported African rats and spread to U.S. 
prairie dogs showed the risks of owning exotic pets.

But cuddly little pocket pets like hamsters were not thought to pose 
much of a problem.

Gerbils, guinea pigs, ferrets and rabbits could also carry the germ, 
the CDC said.

“This outbreak highlights the fact that there is no perfectly safe pet. 
Parents and children should wash their hands thoroughly after contact 
with any pet”—even the family dog, said Dr. Stephen J. Swanson, a CDC 
epidemiologist working in the Minnesota Department of Health.

CDC started investigating last summer after Minnesota officials found 
the unusual infection in a 5-year-old boy sickened after playing with 
and kissing a pet mouse that had severe diarrhea and later died.

Tests showed that both had a drug-resistant strain of salmonella, a 
relative of the germ that causes typhoid fever. The same strain was 
found in a 4-year-old boy hospitalized in South Carolina and in his pet 
hamster, which also died.

Officials then checked PulseNet, a national germ reporting database 
designed to detect unusual trends, and found 28 other cases from 
December 2003 to October 2004.

Of the 22 people they have been able to interview, 13 had contact with 
rodents bought from pet stores and two caught salmonella from others 
who were ill. Seven had no known contact with rodents; investigations 
are continuing on the rest.

Cases have been confirmed in Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey 
and North Carolina.

Diarrhea is common in rodents, and many animal dealers routinely use 
antibiotics to prevent this. Such use may have spurred this 
multidrug-resistant strain to emerge, health officials speculate.

But not all of the animals in this outbreak were sick, so people should 
not think healthy ones don’t carry the bacteria, Swanson said.

“We only looked for this particular strain. There may be other 
salmonellas that may be linked to pocket pets,” Braden added.

Dr. Robert Tauxe, chief of foodborne illness at CDC, said detecting an 
outbreak like this would not have been possible before PulseNet, a 
system he helped start in 1996. It was expanded nationwide in 2001.

“With great luck, a case of illness in Minnesota might have been linked 
to one hamster and that would have been the end of it,” Tauxe said. “We 
would never have been able to identify it as a nationwide problem.”

In light of the outbreak, CDC recommends:

People should wash hands well after handling rodents, their cases or 
bedding.


Doctors should consider pets as a source of drug-resistant salmonella 
in patients with severe diarrhea.


Veterinarians should do the same when treating rodents, and should test 
for it if clusters of such animals offered for sale are sick.


Pet shops and dealers should sanitize transport containers and cages 
between uses.


Owners should not kiss their pets or hold them close to their mouths; 
pets should be kept away from kitchens and food.



(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may 
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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