The CDC recently released safety tips for interacting with animals at state fairs, zoos, aquariums and in the home.
Sandy Benson, an Infection Preventionist at Hendricks Regional Health, discusses these tips and offers advice on how to keep your family's next animal adventure a healthy one.
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Safety Tips While Interacting With Animals
Featured Speaker:
Sandra (Sandy) Benson, BSN, RN
Sandy Benson is the Infection Preventionist at Hendricks Regional Health. Transcription:
Safety Tips While Interacting With Animals
Melanie Cole (Host): It may sound a little crazy, but children can get ill handling animals, even pets. The CDC recently released safety tips on interacting with animals at fairs and zoos and aquariums and such. My guest today is Sandy Benson. She is the infection preventionist at Hendricks Regional Health. Sandy, so what – first of all, can animals carry diseases that humans can catch? And if so, what ones?
Sandy Benson, BSN, RN (Guest): Absolutely. Animals can transmit things to humans. For example, recently our local health department identified a case of I guess you want to call it a pig transmitting flu to a human being. It can happen. Interacting with animals, at fairs, zoos, and aquariums can be pretty educational and fun but it’s important to remember that animals sometimes carry harmful germs that can make us sick. Every year, many people get sick after visiting animal exhibits. From the year 2010 to 2015, there were about 100 outbreaks of illness in people linked to animals in public settings like zoos, fairs and educational farms. And these were all reported to public health officials.
Melanie: Yikes, so do you think in your opinion, that some of those outbreaks were because at those petting zoos, there’s feces everywhere and so you are kind of walking in it, and you are petting an animal that maybe was just rolling in it, or that the animals themselves have this? Is it kind of a mixture of both?
Sandy: It can be a mixture of both. Some of the most common harmful germs that people get from animal exhibits are like e coli, which usually you find it in stool, cryptosporidium, you can find that as well. It is what we call a dirt water bug and then salmonella infections. But there are many other types of germs that can spread between animals and people. If you forget to wash your hands after petting an animal or bring food or drinks into an area with animals; you increase your chance of getting sick. Even animals that look clean and healthy can carry harmful germs. And areas where the animals live or roam as you said, can be contaminated. You don’t have to even touch an animal to get sick.
Melanie: So, are there certain animals that you would say as an infection preventionist, you know what, don’t even let your kids mess around with those animals? Are there certain ones that are more likely to carry diseases like a goat versus one of those little baby sheep or something that you see at some of these exhibits?
Sandy: What I do recommend is you want to – this is fair time, this is the time of year that most of us in the Midwest visit fairs and we have exhibits and of course 4-H is going live. What you want to do is make sure that you keep apprised of any type of anything that’s going around for example as I mentioned earlier, we did have an evidence of a pig passing swine flu to a human being. You want to make sure that you are aware of those kinds of things and usually your health department will let you know that and will post signage to that. So, I would say be careful with you swine for sure. With most animals I think you are pretty good with like your chickens and your – you don’t want to have the children play in the chicken feces for sure, you don’t want to do that. But most children limited to just petting the llama or petting the sheep or petting a goat and that’s pretty harmless again, provided the child’s hands are thoroughly washed or sanitized after contact with the animal. And again, you do want to make sure that the child doesn’t put their hands in their mouths after contact with the animals. Very important. They can look clean and healthy, but again, where they are, there is feces as you mentioned, there’s food and the animals can come in contact with other animals that may be sick. Sometimes they are sick, and they don’t look sick.
Melanie: That’s true. Now you know there has always been – we have sort of always heard as parents about reptiles, and that there are certain reptiles that your children whether it’s salamanders or I don’t even know what they are. So, maybe you could tell us. Which of those reptiles we should not really let our kids touch at all and which ones we just want to make sure that they really wash their hands really well?
Sandy: Well absolutely. Reptiles have a reputation of having what we call salmonella. There have been a number of outbreaks tracked back through to reptiles that have been sold in zoos or that have been on exhibit. I really caution, I know kids will go through periods of time where certain things are popular for example, lizards. People will get on a kick that lizards, oh they are attractive, they are pretty, but they do carry salmonella. Oftentimes, bearded dragons those bearded dragon lizards are pretty popular, pretty cool looking, they often carry salmonella on their skin. Turtles, you want to make sure that you are careful with turtles. Those things exist on the reptiles. They don’t make the reptile sick, but they can certainly make you sick if you get enough of the bacteria in your system.
You also want to make sure that there have been things tracked back to gerbils and hamsters. These are kind of cute little fuzzy things that kids enjoy and have fun and play with. But you definitely want to make it very clear to them that handwashing, washing their hands anytime they touch the animal, or you want to limit where the animal is running around. Sometimes people think it’s pretty cool to have your salamander or have your bearded dragon walking around the house. Well keep in mind that if they have got salmonella on their skin, they are going to deposit it on your rugs, on your furniture, in your home and you can certainly pick it up from there if you don’t clean up behind them. I do recommend that if you are going to let them run around on surfaces that you certainly make sure that you wipe down those surfaces with some sort of disinfectant wipe afterwards and again, cautioning the children, making sure that they wash their hands or anyone who is handling the pet, washes their hands and really wash them pretty good with twenty seconds soap and water. You also want to make sure you keep the pet environment as clean as you possibly can. Remember if you don’t change the bedding, that bacteria can collect and make it more difficult or easier for the animal to transmit whatever is on it to the handler or to the surroundings as well.
Melanie: And you don’t typically think of these reptiles specifically as having it on their skin, but it’s on their skin and what about things like turtles that have a shell?
Sandy: Same thing with turtles. You will remember they have their little tails and their little feet and of course their little heads that poke off. They go in water and oftentimes again, it’s just something that naturally exists on their skin. They never really quite get rid of it. Some of them have more of the germs than others. You can’t bathe them to get rid of it. It is something that’s natural to them. So, you want to make sure that if you have got the little turtles, the little geckos, the little lizards; to definitely want to, they are all in the same category as far as the types of germs that might live on their skin. And again, it doesn’t make the pet typically sick, but it can certainly make a human being sick. Especially if the human is a young child, five years or under and maybe haven’t had contact with reptiles or amphibians before. The CDC really recommends that children under five years of age or younger, that shouldn’t have contact with reptiles, amphibians or live poultry, including the baby chicks and ducklings because these animals are pretty commonly associated with outbreaks if disease. So oftentimes, it looks cute, the children want to touch them, they look fascinating, but they can be harmful as far as making someone sick.
Melanie: Wow, it’s enough to make you not want to even take your kids to those petting zoos or those sorts of things anyway. What about our normal pets, wrap it up for us Sandy, with your best advice and add in our normal pets, our dogs and our cats and things that we have every day. Do we need to concern ourselves with those as well?
Sandy: The one thing you want to remember about your normal pets is remember that they do like to – if you take them out for a walk, most of us have pups or dogs, they do like to roll in things like dead animals. Sometimes, they like to roll in animal poop. To them, it’s a perfume, they enjoy it and they are very proud to wear it. Well, if they have rolled in fox poo after a day at the doggie daycare and they are not bathed, and you have your child to play with the animal, of course they are going to pick up whatever is in the fox poop. Most animals, you don’t hear too many often about cats and dogs transmitting things to human beings. There are occasions that that could happen. But you do want to make sure that the child is taught very early on as one of the responsibilities of being a pet owner is to make sure that you wash your hands after playing with your pet. You want to make sure that you don’t play with that pet and eat at the same time. You try to make sure that when you handle the pet’s water bowls, or you handle the pet’s dog food, you are feeding them; you want to make sure that you wash your hands after doing that as well. Washing the pet’s dishes of course on a regular basis is pretty important as well. Pregnant women should avoid changing cat litter. Cats can transmit things in their feces to pregnant women that could be harmful to the fetus. So, you do want to make sure that hand hygiene, clean bedding, washing the animal bowls, very important for pet safety and again a big responsibility is performing hand hygiene after handling the pet.
Melanie: It is great advice and really interesting and so important for us all to hear Sandy especially things like the pregnant women shouldn’t change cat litter and children under five just shouldn’t even touch reptiles at all. So, these are great recommendations by you and the CDC. Thank you so much for being with us today. As always, you are such a great guest. This is Health Talks with HRH, Hendricks Regional Health. For more information, please visit www.hendricks.org, that’s www.hendricks.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks for tuning in.
Safety Tips While Interacting With Animals
Melanie Cole (Host): It may sound a little crazy, but children can get ill handling animals, even pets. The CDC recently released safety tips on interacting with animals at fairs and zoos and aquariums and such. My guest today is Sandy Benson. She is the infection preventionist at Hendricks Regional Health. Sandy, so what – first of all, can animals carry diseases that humans can catch? And if so, what ones?
Sandy Benson, BSN, RN (Guest): Absolutely. Animals can transmit things to humans. For example, recently our local health department identified a case of I guess you want to call it a pig transmitting flu to a human being. It can happen. Interacting with animals, at fairs, zoos, and aquariums can be pretty educational and fun but it’s important to remember that animals sometimes carry harmful germs that can make us sick. Every year, many people get sick after visiting animal exhibits. From the year 2010 to 2015, there were about 100 outbreaks of illness in people linked to animals in public settings like zoos, fairs and educational farms. And these were all reported to public health officials.
Melanie: Yikes, so do you think in your opinion, that some of those outbreaks were because at those petting zoos, there’s feces everywhere and so you are kind of walking in it, and you are petting an animal that maybe was just rolling in it, or that the animals themselves have this? Is it kind of a mixture of both?
Sandy: It can be a mixture of both. Some of the most common harmful germs that people get from animal exhibits are like e coli, which usually you find it in stool, cryptosporidium, you can find that as well. It is what we call a dirt water bug and then salmonella infections. But there are many other types of germs that can spread between animals and people. If you forget to wash your hands after petting an animal or bring food or drinks into an area with animals; you increase your chance of getting sick. Even animals that look clean and healthy can carry harmful germs. And areas where the animals live or roam as you said, can be contaminated. You don’t have to even touch an animal to get sick.
Melanie: So, are there certain animals that you would say as an infection preventionist, you know what, don’t even let your kids mess around with those animals? Are there certain ones that are more likely to carry diseases like a goat versus one of those little baby sheep or something that you see at some of these exhibits?
Sandy: What I do recommend is you want to – this is fair time, this is the time of year that most of us in the Midwest visit fairs and we have exhibits and of course 4-H is going live. What you want to do is make sure that you keep apprised of any type of anything that’s going around for example as I mentioned earlier, we did have an evidence of a pig passing swine flu to a human being. You want to make sure that you are aware of those kinds of things and usually your health department will let you know that and will post signage to that. So, I would say be careful with you swine for sure. With most animals I think you are pretty good with like your chickens and your – you don’t want to have the children play in the chicken feces for sure, you don’t want to do that. But most children limited to just petting the llama or petting the sheep or petting a goat and that’s pretty harmless again, provided the child’s hands are thoroughly washed or sanitized after contact with the animal. And again, you do want to make sure that the child doesn’t put their hands in their mouths after contact with the animals. Very important. They can look clean and healthy, but again, where they are, there is feces as you mentioned, there’s food and the animals can come in contact with other animals that may be sick. Sometimes they are sick, and they don’t look sick.
Melanie: That’s true. Now you know there has always been – we have sort of always heard as parents about reptiles, and that there are certain reptiles that your children whether it’s salamanders or I don’t even know what they are. So, maybe you could tell us. Which of those reptiles we should not really let our kids touch at all and which ones we just want to make sure that they really wash their hands really well?
Sandy: Well absolutely. Reptiles have a reputation of having what we call salmonella. There have been a number of outbreaks tracked back through to reptiles that have been sold in zoos or that have been on exhibit. I really caution, I know kids will go through periods of time where certain things are popular for example, lizards. People will get on a kick that lizards, oh they are attractive, they are pretty, but they do carry salmonella. Oftentimes, bearded dragons those bearded dragon lizards are pretty popular, pretty cool looking, they often carry salmonella on their skin. Turtles, you want to make sure that you are careful with turtles. Those things exist on the reptiles. They don’t make the reptile sick, but they can certainly make you sick if you get enough of the bacteria in your system.
You also want to make sure that there have been things tracked back to gerbils and hamsters. These are kind of cute little fuzzy things that kids enjoy and have fun and play with. But you definitely want to make it very clear to them that handwashing, washing their hands anytime they touch the animal, or you want to limit where the animal is running around. Sometimes people think it’s pretty cool to have your salamander or have your bearded dragon walking around the house. Well keep in mind that if they have got salmonella on their skin, they are going to deposit it on your rugs, on your furniture, in your home and you can certainly pick it up from there if you don’t clean up behind them. I do recommend that if you are going to let them run around on surfaces that you certainly make sure that you wipe down those surfaces with some sort of disinfectant wipe afterwards and again, cautioning the children, making sure that they wash their hands or anyone who is handling the pet, washes their hands and really wash them pretty good with twenty seconds soap and water. You also want to make sure you keep the pet environment as clean as you possibly can. Remember if you don’t change the bedding, that bacteria can collect and make it more difficult or easier for the animal to transmit whatever is on it to the handler or to the surroundings as well.
Melanie: And you don’t typically think of these reptiles specifically as having it on their skin, but it’s on their skin and what about things like turtles that have a shell?
Sandy: Same thing with turtles. You will remember they have their little tails and their little feet and of course their little heads that poke off. They go in water and oftentimes again, it’s just something that naturally exists on their skin. They never really quite get rid of it. Some of them have more of the germs than others. You can’t bathe them to get rid of it. It is something that’s natural to them. So, you want to make sure that if you have got the little turtles, the little geckos, the little lizards; to definitely want to, they are all in the same category as far as the types of germs that might live on their skin. And again, it doesn’t make the pet typically sick, but it can certainly make a human being sick. Especially if the human is a young child, five years or under and maybe haven’t had contact with reptiles or amphibians before. The CDC really recommends that children under five years of age or younger, that shouldn’t have contact with reptiles, amphibians or live poultry, including the baby chicks and ducklings because these animals are pretty commonly associated with outbreaks if disease. So oftentimes, it looks cute, the children want to touch them, they look fascinating, but they can be harmful as far as making someone sick.
Melanie: Wow, it’s enough to make you not want to even take your kids to those petting zoos or those sorts of things anyway. What about our normal pets, wrap it up for us Sandy, with your best advice and add in our normal pets, our dogs and our cats and things that we have every day. Do we need to concern ourselves with those as well?
Sandy: The one thing you want to remember about your normal pets is remember that they do like to – if you take them out for a walk, most of us have pups or dogs, they do like to roll in things like dead animals. Sometimes, they like to roll in animal poop. To them, it’s a perfume, they enjoy it and they are very proud to wear it. Well, if they have rolled in fox poo after a day at the doggie daycare and they are not bathed, and you have your child to play with the animal, of course they are going to pick up whatever is in the fox poop. Most animals, you don’t hear too many often about cats and dogs transmitting things to human beings. There are occasions that that could happen. But you do want to make sure that the child is taught very early on as one of the responsibilities of being a pet owner is to make sure that you wash your hands after playing with your pet. You want to make sure that you don’t play with that pet and eat at the same time. You try to make sure that when you handle the pet’s water bowls, or you handle the pet’s dog food, you are feeding them; you want to make sure that you wash your hands after doing that as well. Washing the pet’s dishes of course on a regular basis is pretty important as well. Pregnant women should avoid changing cat litter. Cats can transmit things in their feces to pregnant women that could be harmful to the fetus. So, you do want to make sure that hand hygiene, clean bedding, washing the animal bowls, very important for pet safety and again a big responsibility is performing hand hygiene after handling the pet.
Melanie: It is great advice and really interesting and so important for us all to hear Sandy especially things like the pregnant women shouldn’t change cat litter and children under five just shouldn’t even touch reptiles at all. So, these are great recommendations by you and the CDC. Thank you so much for being with us today. As always, you are such a great guest. This is Health Talks with HRH, Hendricks Regional Health. For more information, please visit www.hendricks.org, that’s www.hendricks.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks for tuning in.