Disease Ridden Hedgehogs?
Each year literally hundreds of millions exotic animals are imported into the USA and Europe. An animal can be happily living in a jungle in Asia, South America or Africa one day, and find itself in a cage in some little girl’s bedroom in less than a week. Many of these future pets are not subject to quarantine requirements and often only minimal health checks are carried out before we bring them into our homes. Unfortunately many owners have no idea that their new pet could pose a significant health risk to them and their families.
Zoonotic Diseases
Zoonotic diseases are those that can jump from animals to humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA says that zoonotic diseases account for around three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases today.
This article is about some of the diseases your pet hedgehog may be carrying.
A recent CDC report lists a scary number of confirmed and potential zoonotic diseases that pet and wild hedgehogs can carry. The confirmed diseases include Salmonella, Yersina, pseudotubercolosis, Mycobacterium marinum, Herpesvirus including human herpes simplex and Rabies. The potential diseases they can carry include Yersina pestis (also responsible for Bubonic plague) and hemorrhagic fever.
Salmonella
Salmonella is normally contracted from contaminated food. The CDC states that 20 in 100 cases of infection are due to contact with exotic pets. For example they estimate that nearly eighty thousand Americans contract Salmonella from their pet reptiles every year.
In 1994 African Pygmy Hedgehogs were responsible for passing on a rare form of Salmonella (S. tilene), to a 10 month old girl who became the first ever confirmed case of this serotype in a human in the USA. The girl’s family were pet hedgehog breeders and she shared the house with a herd of around eighty hedgehogs. Of particular importance is that the girl had never had any contact with the hedgehogs herself. A family member who had been in contact with the animals spread the infection to her. This serotype has since been found to be the cause of infection in many other cases.
Ringworm
Despite its name ringworm or Tinea is not a worm but is actually a fungal skin infection. One source of ringworm is known to be pet and wild hedgehogs. Over the past few months HedgehogsAsPets.com has been covering a story where three people were infected with ringworm by two hoglets bought from the same breeder.
This story even more frightening because the woman concerned somehow managed to get around the UK’s strict quarantine laws and import several African Pygmy Hedgehogs directly into the country from Germany. Usually anti rabies legislation requires hedgehogs to spend six months in a government regulated facility before they can be imported into the country.
Something that has also raised not a few eyebrows in this case is that this woman claims that the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) gave her permission to quarantine these hedgehogs at home, in a house that must have seemed like a veritable zoo, containing other hedgehogs, sugar gliders, snakes, lizards and rats, as well as cats and dogs. The breeder later learned that the German breeder’s herd was infected with ringworm, but not before she had spread the disease from the “German” hedgehogs to her breeding pair. The offspring of these latter were sold and went on to infect three people with ringworm.
This tale is also an example of what can happen when you purchase your pet from less than reputable breeders. Over the past six months the breeder in question has promised to pay part of the new owners’ vet’s fees but they have yet to see a penny-.
Reducing the risk of infection
To reduce the risk of infection simply go to this site and follow the advice they give there: http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/browse_by_animal.htm.
Buying your pet from a reputable breeder rather than a pet store or pet distributor, should also provide you with more guarantees about where the animal came from.
Although the chances of catching an exotic disease from your pet are not very big, you must take into consideration that the risk does exist and take steps to minimise it. The advice and information you’ll find on the CDC site will greatly reduce the risk of infection.
Tags: diseases, hedgehog diseases, hedgehogs, RingWorm, Salmonella