With all the recent panic over the pig-transmitted swine flu, here are some other diseases that can be passed on from your pets — and the easy things you can do to protect yourself. These five diseases are preventable by pre-cautioning yourself and keeping your pets healthy in the first place!
Toxoplasmosis
If you’re ever owned a cat and been pregnant, you know your M.D. is paranoid about your cat shedding Toxoplasma to you. Cats are carriers for this infectious single-cell parasitic organism, but are smart enough to rarely ever be affected by it - they just shed it. Unfortunately, Toxoplasma can result in miscarriage, birth defects, and in the immunosuppressed, neurologic signs. It’s contagious in three ways: (a) via transmission from a pregnant mother to her unborn child when the mother is infected during pregnancy, (b) by handling or ingesting undercooked or raw meat from infected animals (like venison, lamb, or pork), or (c) by inhalation or ingestion of the oocyst (an early “egg” stage of the Toxoplasma) from soil or litter contact (when gardening, playing in your kid’s sandbox, or from an unhygienic litter box). Toxoplasma oocysts take more than 24 hours to “ripen” and become infectious to you, so daily cleaning of the litter box helps prevent transmission to you. If you’re pregnant, it’s safer for you to clean the litter box once or twice a day for the duration of your pregnancy, or better yet, let your partner have litter box duty for the next nine months. A few other easy ways to protect yourself are to avoid raw meat (cooking meat to at least 152ºF), using gloves when gardening, washing your garden vegetables well, and being an advocate for keeping cats indoors, as they first are exposed to toxoplasmosis while hunting vermin.
Cat scratch disease
Cat scratch disease (CSD) is like its name toots - when your cat inadvertently scratches you, he can potentially transmit the bacterium Bartonella henselae to you. Symptoms include fever, swollen lymph nodes, back pain, and generalized malaise in you, while your cat remains asymptomatic. Up to 40% of cats carry this bug during some stage of their life, and originally caught the bacteria from fleas. It’s also more commonly found in kittens (who tend to scratch more during play). Avoid this problem by avoiding scratches to begin with (which means no cat rough housing and keeping those feline nails trimmed short!). If you do get scratched, use soap and running water to scrub the wound extensively, and consult with a medical doctor immediately.
Cutaneous larval migrans
Want to know why your vet is constantly hounding you for a fecal sample? It’s because cat or dog intestinal worms can be spread to humans, and result in much more devastating effects. Typically, these worms stay in the intestinal tract of that four-legged species. However, if the parasite gets into a non-traditional species (i.e., us), the worm doesn’t “know” where to go; instead of just migrating through the intestines, the worm ends up migrating throughout the body including the eyes and skin – resulting in cutaneous larval migrans – which can result in blindness in children. For this reason, it’s imperative that you make sure that your pets are routinely dewormed, and that children and adults wash their hands after exposure to animal feces. This is another reason why it’s so important and part of your responsibility as a pet owner to scoop poop!
Ringworm
Nothing’s more embarrassing than having to shop for tough-actin’ Tinactin for jock itch or athlete’s foot. Well, this same fungal infection (called dermatophytosis, or more commonly ringworm) is found in our pets – and can be shed from them to us! Cats often carry ringworm on their fur more frequently than dogs, and often are asymptomatic – in other words, they may not be affected, but will likely shed it to you. (Are you noticing the trend here? With all their 9-lives, cats luck out of the dirtiness of diseases and just carry them instead!). These fungal species (Microsporum canis, Microsporum gypseum, or Trichophyton) can result in a red, raised, hairless lesion on both you and your pet. As a vet, I’ve gotten ringworm after my stethoscope has touched affected animals, only to develop it all over my neck. The good thing is this is typically self-limiting (it’ll go away in you because you’re not the right host species for the fungus) and easily treatable with an OTC antifungal cream, but embarrassing nevertheless.
Plague
While you may not believe it, plague is back, thanks to your outdoor cat. If you live in the four-corner states or anywhere near the Rocky Mountains, know that the rodent flea (Oropsylla Montana) is the vector or carrier of the Yersinia pestis bacteria. Roaming, outdoor cats are suspectible because they are the ones catching infected rodents while getting infested with the rodent fleas… only to potentially bring it home to you. The good news is that plague is treatable with tetracycline antibiotics. The bad news is that it’s a serious disease and needs to be legally reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which then reports it to the World Health Organization. Don’t worry – you’re not in trouble, but due to a risk of this being so contagious and a potential biochemical weapon, the state and federal government need to know about it. As a vet, I care about this disease a lot because 50% of people who got plague were veterinarians (thanks to treating your infected cat!). Yet another bad disease caused by flea infestation! See why we vets harp on flea preventative?
• While all these diseases are treatable, they can cause serious problems in immunosuppressed or pregnant humans.
• Check out great resources at the Center for Disease Control for information on how to avoid these diseases in the first place!
http://www.cdc.gov/HEALTHYPETS/browse_by_animal.htm
• Most of these diseases are preventable with prevention: keeping your pet healthy, on flea and tick preventative, on deworming medication, and ideally indoors (if you’re of the feline persuasion).
References:
http://www.petsandparasites.com/cat-owners/toxoplasmosis.html
www.pawssf.org
www.cdc.gov/healthypets
http://www.avma.org/communications/brochures/toxoplasmosis/toxoplasmosis_brochure.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/toxoplasmosis/pdfs/toxocatowners_8.2004.pdf