American research says not to sleep with pets

William Atkins
Monday, 24 January 2011 03:11

Science - Health

According to research published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, humans should not sleep with their pets due to the risk of getting one of over 100 different known zoonotic diseases.

 

Zoonotic diseases (zoonosis) are those diseases that are able to be transmitted between humans and undomesticated (wild) and domesticated animals. There are over 200 such diseases.

Of these, about 100 zoonotic diseases can be transmitted between humans and their domesticated animals, their pets.

Zoonotic diseases can be causes by numerous sources, such as bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses.

For instance, cats can transmit cat-scratch disease (caused by the bacterium Bartonella), while rabies (caused by a virus from the genus Lyssavirus, family Rhabdoviridae, and order Mononeqavirales) can be transmitted by both cats and dogs to humans.

And, dogs can transmit dog roundworm (Toxocara canis) to humans, while cats can transmit cat roundworm (Toxocara cati).

The research of human contact with their pets, co-authored by Dr. Peter M. Rabinowitz (Yale School of Medicine, Occupational Medicine), stated that the risk of getting one of these zoonotic diseases is relatively small but it still does exist.

In addition, the paper's results state that people with weakened immune systems, the elderly, and children five years or younger are at greater risk at getting such a zoonotic disease from a pet, or any other animal, than people without a weakened immune system.

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