Outbreaks of human salmonellosis linked to reptiles are far from rare or noteworthy, but since they’re still common, clearly we still need to talk about them to help increase awareness.
The latest such outbreak in Canada involved 25 cases of Salmonella Muenchen infection in people linked to contact with geckos. Cases stretched from British Columbia
In some ways, I wonder why there even are recalls for raw pet foods and Salmonella. We know contamination is common, and the contaminated foods that get identified and recalled are presumably a very small portion of the amount of contaminated food that’s in circulation. At the same time, when a problem is identified
Reptiles and Salmonella is about as far from a new story as anything on this blog, but talking about it is still worthwhile, because it’s still making people ill. I’ll package two similar stories into one post here.
I’m supposed to be in Rome for an antimicrobial resistance (AMR) meeting but a positive COVID test but a kink in my travel plans. So, I’ll take some unexpected time to catch up on some blog material. We’ll start with a pair of pet-food-linked Salmonella outbreaks, starting with a Canadian outbreak.
The US CDC is reporting an outbreak of salmonellosis linked to dry dog food. It’s a small outbreak in terms of the number of diagnosed infections (7) but, as always, the diagnosed infections are presumably just the tip of the iceberg, especially since they have been found in seven different US states (see map below).
Avian flu caused an uptick in discussion about health risks associated with feeding dogs and cats raw meat, based on the possible (and still pretty tenuous) link between raw poultry and a large number of H5N1 infections in cats in Poland.
The link between raw diets and flu infections is new, and something
Alberta Health Services is reporting a cluster of Salmonella infections linked to pet reptiles. In many ways, this isn’t really remarkable (unless you’re one of the people who’s infected). Reptile contact is a very well-known risk factor for acquiring Salmonella, especially in kids.
So far, 12 infections have been reported. Reported cases are always
People can get pretty fired up when I talk about raw diets for pets. I’ll start off with my personal bias: I’d rather not see pets fed raw meat and raw animal-based products (e.g. pig ears and various bits-o-cow you can find in pet stores). There are clear risks to pets and owners from raw
I got a question about an old post on this topic, so I decided to add a bit of information and re-post it. Not much has changed since it was written in 2018, apart from more reports of people and pets getting sick from raw pet food and raw treats.
It was surprising to see what things sold out early in the pandemic: toilet paper, yeast, exercise equipment…. and chicken coops.
Yes, there was a run on chicken coops.
It seems like a lot of people decided to get backyard chickens in response to all the COVID-19 restrictions.
Any human-to-animal contact has a mixture of
