5 Ways Your Pets Can Make You Sick

Having a pet often improves one’s health, due to such things as the pleasant company and increased exercise (depending on the pet, of course).

But it’s not always so:

Watch out for…

None of these are fun:

1. Cat scratch disease: infection with Bartonella bacteria transmitted through a bite or scratch from a cat—especially kittens carrying infected fleas—causing a bump at the wound followed weeks later by fever and swollen lymph nodes.
2. Salmonella from reptiles: infection with Salmonella bacteria carried on the skin or shell of turtles, frogs, and other reptiles or amphibians, which can spread through contaminated surfaces like sinks or bathtubs used to clean their habitats.
3. Fish tank infection: skin infection with Mycobacterium marinum can be acquired while cleaning a fish tank, producing a slowly spreading rash along the arm.
4. Bird fancier’s lung: a form of hypersensitivity pneumonitis caused by inhaling proteins from bird feathers or droppings, leading to chronic cough, lung inflammation, and shortness of breath in people exposed to birds.
5. cutaneous larva migrans (hookworm infection): parasitic larvae from dog or cat hookworms burrow into your skin after contact with contaminated soil or sand, producing an intensely itchy (and migrating) rash.

For more on each of these, plus illustrative case studies of how bad it gets with each, enjoy:

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Take care!