Are our homes microbiologically safe for pets?
In this article in Microbiology Today (pdf) Charles Penn questions if the animals we keep in our homes are at risk of infection from living with us, rather than the other way round. Whilst much research has been done into human zoonoses, only a few investigations have been carried out into the transmission of pathogens from people to pets. New molecular techniques may enable scientists to be better informed about this in the future:
The underlying assumption in the great majority of studies has been that the animal is the source of human infection, and if the same pathogen is found in both hosts the animal almost automatically gets the blame for passing it on to the human! But is this rational? Is it not possible that pet animals might equally be infected with pathogens emanating from ourselves, or acquired as a result of our uninformed practices in ‘caring’ for our pets? Taking a step back, several issues have to be explored before these questions can be answered. Are healthy dogs and cats routinely carriers and sources of the zoonotic pathogens we fear? Or do they get sick as we do when infected, and perhaps cease to carry or shed these organisms when they recover? Can these pathogens be transiently excreted by pets after exposure to food or environmental or other sources?
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Tags: Bacteria, Biology, disease, Environment, Health, Medicine, Microbiology, Science
Good work, congratulations. Article very interesting
JC
Interesting article! I didn’t have thought about human to animal transmission