Sleeping with pets carries disease risk
The MooMoo (pictured) is not gonna like this:
“The risk of contracting something is rare, but if you’re that person who gets a disease from a pet, rare doesn’t matter that much,” says the paper’s co-author Bruno Chomel, a professor at the University of California-Davis school of veterinary medicine and an expert in zoonoses, the transmission of disease from animal to human. “I know this will make me unpopular, but pets really don’t belong in your bed.”
Chomel and co-author Ben Sun, chief veterinarian with the California Department of Public Health, combed through medical journals to find examples of pets making people ill after sharing a bed. Among them: a 9-year-old Arizona boy developed plague after sleeping with his flea-infested cat. (Fleas are notorious plague carriers, especially in western states.) And then there’s the 60-year-old British woman who contracted meningitis after repeatedly kissing the family dog. Add in some cases of nasty parasitic and drug-resistant staph infections and it’s enough to make one purchase a futon for Fluffy and Fido.
At greatest risk are the young, elderly, and those whose immune systems are compromised, such as transplant patients, diabetics and people who are HIV-positive.
Picking up a disease from the family pet is indeed rare, as the paper shows. But there are issues that you should know. Approximately 60 percent of all human pathogens could have been transmitted by an animal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And more than 100 of the 250 zoonotic diseases identified come from domesticated pets, says Chomel.
For example, one CDC study shows that about 14 percent of the U.S. population is infected with roundworms, leading to a zoonotic infection called toxocariasis. The mode of transmission occurs when humans come into contact with sand or soil that is contaminated with infected roundworm eggs and larvae found in dog or cat waste. Human roundworm infections, though rare, can cause blindness, among other problems.
But everyone needs to make like a cat and relax. That’s because the important message is pretty simple: Healthy pets carry little risk of disease.
In related news: The Huffington Post reports that 14% of people would choose their pet over their lover.
According to “Zoonoses in the Bedroom,” a study published in the February issue of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, sleeping with and “kissing” your animals on their little pet lips puts you at risk for some serious medical problems — even when those pusses and pooches are seemingly healthy.
“The risk of contracting something is rare, but if you’re that person who gets a disease from a pet, rare doesn’t matter that much,” says the paper’s co-author Bruno Chomel, a professor at the University of California-Davis school of veterinary medicine and an expert in zoonoses, the transmission of disease from animal to human. “I know this will make me unpopular, but pets really don’t belong in your bed.”
Chomel and co-author Ben Sun, chief veterinarian with the California Department of Public Health, combed through medical journals to find examples of pets making people ill after sharing a bed. Among them: a 9-year-old Arizona boy developed plague after sleeping with his flea-infested cat. (Fleas are notorious plague carriers, especially in western states.) And then there’s the 60-year-old British woman who contracted meningitis after repeatedly kissing the family dog. Add in some cases of nasty parasitic and drug-resistant staph infections and it’s enough to make one purchase a futon for Fluffy and Fido.
At greatest risk are the young, elderly, and those whose immune systems are compromised, such as transplant patients, diabetics and people who are HIV-positive.
Picking up a disease from the family pet is indeed rare, as the paper shows. But there are issues that you should know. Approximately 60 percent of all human pathogens could have been transmitted by an animal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And more than 100 of the 250 zoonotic diseases identified come from domesticated pets, says Chomel.
For example, one CDC study shows that about 14 percent of the U.S. population is infected with roundworms, leading to a zoonotic infection called toxocariasis. The mode of transmission occurs when humans come into contact with sand or soil that is contaminated with infected roundworm eggs and larvae found in dog or cat waste. Human roundworm infections, though rare, can cause blindness, among other problems.
But everyone needs to make like a cat and relax. That’s because the important message is pretty simple: Healthy pets carry little risk of disease.
In related news: The Huffington Post reports that 14% of people would choose their pet over their lover.
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