2023-09-12 13:00:44
As more and more households adopt pets, two experts asked the question: Is it dangerous to kiss your faithful companion? Answers.
Pets play an important role in everyone’s lives. And for their show affection, it is sometimes difficult to resist the urge to cover them with kisses. However, this gesture can include risk for the health, as two experts point out.
In an article from The Conversation published on September 4, Sarah McLean, lecturer in environmental health and Enzo Palombo, professor of microbiology, both at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, worked on the pathologies that our animal friends might transmit to humans. If the risk of contamination is low in adults and in good health, there is for fragile people. To know, pregnant women, the elderly or immunocompromised people are more prone to catching diseases.
What type of diseases?
There are several pathologies that can be transmitted by cats or dogs to humans. We call them zoonoses. According to the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES), “the term zoonosis covers a wide variety of diseases“. This family of diseases includes salmonellosis, which results in fever, diarrhea, abdominal pain, but also infection with the hepatitis E virus, which can also cause fever, but also skin rashes. But there is also swine flu, bird flu, coronavirus, rabies…
How are they transmitted?
According to Australian scientists, in dogs, the Capnocytophaga bacteria is often contained in saliva. So, in the event of contact or bite, it can be transmitted.
In the cat, these are giardiasis, campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis and toxoplasmosis which can reach humans via the fecal-oral route. For researchers, “It is therefore particularly important to wash one’s hands or use gloves when handling your cat’s litter box (…) Cats can also sometimes transmit bite or scratch infectionsnotably the aptly named cat scratch diseasecaused by the bacterium Bartonella henselae.”
How to avoid them?
So, to avoid any risk of contamination, it is better to adopt some hygiene gestures. Don’t let your beloved pet lick your face or bandage your wounds. Also, it is important to wear gloves to clean the litter box of his ball of fur, and at a minimum, wash one’s hands following being in contact with your pet.
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