Pet reptiles can pose health risks in the young: Report

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJul 4 2010

An article appearing in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) warns about the health risks to children from exotic reptilian pets.

A four month old girl, the report says, contracted salmonella infection after coming in contact with an eastern bearded dragon. She was taken to an ACT hospital emergency department last year suffering from fever, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. She had to be subsequently hospitalized for four days. The infection did not spread to any other family member the doctors wrote.

The pet was implicated mainly because salmonella is a bacterium that is mainly spread through food. In this case the baby girl was exclusively breast fed. The infection she contracted was detected in the laboratory showed up as a rare form known as Rubislaw. Rubislaw has been detected in various non-human sources in Australia, including water supplies and animals in northern Australia and captive reptiles in NSW and South Australia. These reptiles have salmonella living in their gastrointestinal tracts, and live bacteria is shed periodically in their droppings. “The reptile was not permitted to roam the house but was removed from the terrarium on occasion to be held by the mother,” wrote the doctors in the article.

Samples were collected from the terrarium and the household vacuum cleaner filter. All samples turned up with salmonella rubislaw. The family decided to have the lizard put down because of the health risk it posed.

This one off case serves to warn people of the health risks that exotic reptilian pets can pose especially to younger children. There have been similar reports from US and the UK. Canberra-based Dr Antony Lafferty along with expert colleagues who contributed to the MJA report writes, “We suspect the Australian public may not be familiar with reptile associated salmonellosis…We recommend that owners and prospective owners of reptiles be better informed of the risks to human health, particularly the threat to children.”