http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/733/can-animals-get-vd
Animals and VD. I don’t disagree with Cecil. I was surprised he didn’t mention the problem with Koalas. They get chlamydia and it’s a serious problem. I watched *Croc Diaries * and a zoo in Australia was treating one poor Koala that had been blinded. The same zoo did animal rescues and they got a wild Koala that was blinded. horrible stuff.
I’m assuming Koala chlamydia is the same STD that humans get?
No, it appears to be a different species, although it may be one obtained from people. Chlamydia pneumoniae (that affects koalas, and through my quick skimming, humans), is different from Chlamydia trachomatis (the human STD).
Many animals get Chlamydia (or Chlamydiophila), and it is not sexually transmitted like it is in people. Birds and cats are other common domestic animals affected by that species. Psittacosis, which can cause respiratory disease in people, is an avian respiratory disease caused by Chlamydiophila psittaci.
This is one thing that people confuse. Just because what causes disease in humans is contracted by sex, does not mean another species in the same genus can cause disease in another way in another animal.
All animals have some sort of herpes, for example… Most of them (or the most serious of them) are not STD. They can get some types of Chlamydia(phila)… I think they can also get a relative of Neisseria (gonorrhea) without intercourse.
Cats can transmit FIV (Feline Immune deficiency Virus) much as humans transmit HIV. Well, they don’t shoot up with dirty needles, but they can transmit it through sex or through biting. We had a cat die of that and it was very, very traumatic. One of the reasons we don’t let our cats outdoors any more.
True. I don’t want to say that animals do not get sexually transmitted diseases, just that they’re not necessarily the same. And I bet that cats get FIV by fighting (scratching and biting) more frequently that humans get HIV by that way.
Cats also get herpes, only in their case it is a respiratory disease, and not obtained by venereal transmission. Same happens in many other animals. In the SDMB article, for example, the update by the vet mentions one of the several types of herpesviruses in horses, the only one associated with sexual transmission.
Chlamydial disease in most other animals has nothing to do with venereal disease in humans, and they’re caused by different species.
Very interesting. I’d wondered about this for awhile. Thanks.