Caution Needed With Exotic Pets

Pets can bring much joy into our lives, and relationships with animals can also be very therapeutic for people of all ages, both kids and adults. However, in order to prevent potential disease conditions, certain precautions should be taken. This is especially true in the case of young children, whose immune systems are still forming, and others that may have compromised immune systems.

Today's article gives some practical tips for reducing risks from pets, including recommendations that some animals should probably not be brought into the house at least until your children are older. Having pets of any kind in the home is a great opportunity to teach kids responsibility and the proper care of both the animal and their own personal hygiene after handling them. I don't think it is necessary to eliminate pets, at least most varieties, but it behooves us as parents to take the proper steps in order to ensure the health and safety of both our children and the creatures we invite into our world.


Not All Pets and Children Are Compatible
By: Allie Montgomery Published: Tuesday, 7 October 2008

When we were young we enjoyed our furry companions, but in today's society exposing your children to the joys of owning their own pet, in some cases, may also mean exposing them to injuries and infections. Parents need to be very aware of the danger -- which include salmonella infection and even monkey pox -- of owning a nontraditional pet such as rodents, reptiles, monkeys, and more.

The most recent report on this subject was published in October by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in the most recent issue of Pediatrics. The study's co-author Dr. Robert Frenck, a pediatrics professor at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and a member of the AAP committee of infectious diseases, said that this report is the first comprehensive statement on this particular topic. "Nontraditional pets are becoming more traditional, and nontraditional pets can expose kids to disease they otherwise might not be exposed to. If parents are thinking about having these nontraditional pets, they may want to talk to a veterinarian and/or pediatrician first to see if there is any real concern."

The number of exotic animals that are in the United States has nearly doubled since 2002. For example, approximately 40,000 households in America now harbor hedgehogs, while 4.4 million homes have reptiles, according to the new report. A professor of the pediatric infectious diseases at the University Of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Dr. Charles Miller, added that from the standpoint of public education and from the standpoint of both family practitioners and pediatricians, this subject of owning exotic pets is very important.

The risks of having these pets are real. In 2003, there was an outbreak of human monkey pox that was traced back to imported African Gambian rats that had infected many prairie dogs and were sold as pets. Small turtles that were kept as house pets were responsible for approximately 103 cases of salmonella during the second half of last year, mostly in young children. In just last week, an Iraqi dog was shipped to the United States as part of an international rescue effort for animals and was found to have rabies. Twenty-four other animals were in this shipment and had already been distributed to 16 states. According to the October 3rd issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that these other animals were also potentially exposed to the rabies.

The new review by AAP details a number of the diseases that could be potentially transmitted by these more unusual house pets. The reptiles have a very high rate of carrying different strains of salmonella, as do turtles, baby poultry (including chicks), and our friendly hamsters. Plague is a disease which is carried by wild rodents and is transmitted to human that are handling infected animals. This group also includes the common house cat that has been bitten by fleas. The herpes B virus has been said to be carried by the macaque monkey. These animals don't have to be in a household to pose a risk. More than 55 outbreaks of the diseases in humans, including the infection with E. coli bacteria, have involved animals that were in public settings between 1991 and 2005.

The report is recommending that we wash our hand frequently to help minimize these risks. Children that are under the age of 5 are at particular risk, in part because their immune systems are still developing. Adults that have weakened immune systems, including women who are pregnant and the elderly, are also at a greater risk.

Dr. Jonathan Field, emeritus director of the pediatric allergy and asthma clinic at the New York University/Bellvue Medical Center, stated that our normal allergies are typically associated with dogs and cats than with nontraditional pets. The real problem seem to lie with the people who have weakened immune systems and are exposed to a virus form or a bacteria from one of these pets.

http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/child-health/not-all-pets-children-are-compatible-1913.html