The warnings about washing hands etc. after handling reptiles because of the slight salmonella risk seems to apply even to herbivores like the vegetarian turtle species. Who’s got the straight dope?
How would they get it?
Why don’t reptiles show the same symptoms as mammals? (Get technical. I welcome the challenge. )
Do venomous reptiles show any difference in likelihood to carry it, or other diseases?
Statistics about the actual risks in household pets and in wild populations of varus reptiles would be most welcome, too.
I’d have to have a better connection and access to search for articles (and at work to find my reptile infectious disease book), but I do want to point out that reptiles DO get sick from Salmonella infections.
Well, that fights one point of ignorance already. I thought that the whole warning about salmonella in pet reptiles is because they are asymptomatic carriers, and so absent any visible warnings about whether or not they have the microbe it’s better to assume that they all do, and thus, the warnings about washing hands after handling etc.
The same place a mayonnaise dish gets it if you leave it sitting out too long – there are germs in the environment that drift around more or less inert until they encounter an environment conducive to growth.
That implies that I, sitting here at my desk in front of my desk at work, breathing but not eating anything, am at risk of acquiring a salmonella infection by the same means.
Not necessarily. A dish of mayonnaise doesn’t have an immune system to combat the occasional drifting bit of pathogen. On the other hand, if you eat a dish of mayonnaise where salmonella has spread and reproduced, we’re not talking “the occasional bit” any longer but a full-on attack on your system.
I don’t know the mechanics by which a reptile’s skin creates a favorable breeding ground for salmonella but it’s obviously different from our own skin.
My understanding of the danger is that while reptiles can be ill with Salmonellosis, they can also be asymptomatic carriers. The carrier state is difficult (impossible) to rule out because the organism is shed intermittently. A negative fecal salmonella culture on an iguana, for instance, does not mean the animal will not shed the organism in its feces a week from now.
Add to that the very low infectious dose for a human (five bacteria?) and the fact that for children under five infection can be fatal.
A friend re-homed their iguana due to their reading and the fact that they had a toddler in the house.
I’ve heard that it’s on their skin or shell in the case of turtles, so you have to wash your hands after handling a turtle. I don’t know why reptiles have it but dogs and cats don’t, but I wonder if it has to do with grooming? Mammals do a fair job grooming themselves, but I don’t think reptiles do. Anybody know?
Salmonella are a normal part of the gut flora of reptiles.
Asking how they acquire it is like asking how humans acquire E. coli. It’s just a normal gut bacterium. I imagine that most reptiles are inoculated at birth. The egg has passed through the excretory tract of the mother, which of course is loaded with the bacterium. The act of breaking out of the shell will lead to the young being exposed, and the bacteria will then take up residence in the gut. Of course reptile like iguanas actually eat the feces of the adults, which provides a more direct route for inoculation.
Reptiles don’t normally show symptoms for the same reason that you don’t normally show symptoms of E. coli infection despite being loaded with the bug. The organism is a normal part of the gut flora and is actually beneficial so long at it is a strain that the hos is adapted to stays where it belongs. And just as you can become ill if you are exposed to the wrong strain of E. coli or if it takes up residence in the upper intestinal tract, the same can happen to reptiles with Salmonella. But that’s about as rare as humans suffering illness from from E. coli. 7 billion humans thoroughly inoculated with E. coli. At any time a few thousand showing symptoms.
It’s worth noting that while Salmonella isn’t considered a normal part of mammalian gut flora, it still can take up residence there without doing any harm. IIRC around 1% of people have Salmonella living happily in their gut as part of the normal species mix. This doesn’t cause any ill effects.
The faeces primarily, but for pet reptiles that means that the skin is also heavily contaminated because most people don’t keep the cages clean.
Think of Salmonella in reptiles the way you would think of worms in dogs. the ultimate point of infection is the faeces, but you can still get worms from patting dogs because the faeces finds its way onto the fur.
Salmonella is shed by the feces. The skin is also prone to harbor because many reptiles will spend some time in the water, and the water will be contaminated with Salmonella when they are shedding it.
Also, I did not mean to imply that getting sick (or not) from Salmonella negates the carrier risk. I was just mentioning that they do indeed get sick from it, not always merely asymptomatic. And when they do get sick, their chances of transmitting it to humans can increase.
It’s been a while since I finished my microbiology degree, but if I recall correctly, Salmonella is a normal part of the reptile microbiome, sort of in the same way that E. coli is part of ours. The two bacterial species are pretty closely related, anyway.
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