How To Prevent Your Pets From Spreading Coronavirus

While there's no evidence that pets can catch coronavirus, some vets believe there's a way they can spread the virus through touching pet hair.


POTOMAC, Md. — Veterinarians are taking unprecedented precautions in the age of coronavirus, such as not allowing walk-in appointments and meeting pet owners outside. It's all in an effort to protect people from fomites. 

The Centers for Disease Control says there is no evidence that pets can catch coronavirus. But some veterinarians believe that pets can pass it on. If a person doesn't know they have coronavirus, but has a virus droplet on their hands and then pets a dog in someone’s backyard, the virus could end up on the pet’s hair.

To read more on this story, click here: How To Prevent Your Pets From Spreading Coronavirus

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Centers for Disease Control: Why You Should Never Kiss Your Backyard Chickens

The backyard chicken trend that has taken hold of America has a lot going for it, occasional neighborly disputes notwithstanding. The eggs are fresh, it’s clear where they came from, and raising fowl is educational for children.

But it’s also causing an “emerging public health trend” in the form of increasing salmonella outbreaks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday.

It doesn’t help that, according to the available data, a not-insignificant share of poultry-keepers kiss their chickens and allow them into the living room. These head-scratching findings are among the “high-risk practices” occurring as what once were production animals “are increasingly being considered household pets,” a new CDC study said.

Salmonella infections can make people very ill and, in rare cases, cause death. They originate with bacteria that hang out in animal intestines, enter the world via their feces and are usually transmitted to people through contaminated water or food. But recent outbreaks in the United States have implicated contact with live poultry as a growing source, and healthy chickens are known to shed salmonella bacteria, so the CDC scoured various databases and studies to determine the role of all those crafty coops in the problem.

Here are some of the basic findings:

• From 1990 to 2014, there were 53 “live poultry associated salmonella” outbreaks that sickened 2,630 people, hospitalized 387 and killed five.
• About one outbreak occurred each year from 1990 to 2005.
• That rose to about four outbreaks a year from 2005 to 2014.
• About 6 in 10 patients said they’d been exposed to baby poultry, and 74 percent said that exposure happened at home.

And here are some of the more surprising figures. Of those exposed to baby poultry, these are the percentages of patients who reported:

• Snuggling baby birds: 49
• Kissing baby birds: 13

Nearly half — 46 percent — of patients said they allowed live poultry in the house. Of those, these are the percentages who kept fowl:

• In the living room: 22
• In the kitchen: 12
• In the bedroom: 10
• In the bathroom: 10

No word, unfortunately, on whether cuddling and kissing took place in the bedroom.

About half of those who took the “mi casa es su casa” approach to their chickens reported having owned their birds for a year or less, the study said, which suggests inexperience might have something to do with their unfamiliarity with “appropriate husbandry practices” (though a slightly greater percentage said they knew about the link between poultry and salmonella). The authors of the study also surmised that some people might bring chicks inside in the winter out of fear their fluff will not stand up to the cold.

But the authors were also categorical in their opposition to this practice: “Poultry should never be allowed inside the house,” they wrote.

They stopped far short of warning people off keeping backyard flocks. All in all, the study concluded, poultry owners, especially children, who most often get salmonella, need to regularly wash their hands and be aware that even robust-looking birds can shed salmonella. And health-care workers, veterinarians, pediatricians, hatcheries, feed stores and other key players in this field need to spread the words about the risk.


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If You Have a Dog - PLEASE READ - Multiple Diamond Dog Foods Now Linked to Salmonella Outbreak in Humans

It now appears multiple Diamond Dog Food products have been linked to salmonella infections in the human population.

In a bulletin dated May 3, 2012, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has announced the agency is collaborating with public health officials in multiple states along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigate an ongoing multistate outbreak of human Salmonella Infantis infections.
According to the report.

Public health investigators used DNA “fingerprints” of Salmonella bacteria obtained through diagnostic testing with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, or PFGE, to identify cases of illness that may be part of this outbreak. They used data from PulseNet, the national subtyping network made up of state and local public health laboratories and federal food regulatory laboratories that performs molecular surveillance of foodborne infections. The outbreak strain is rare and typically 0-3 isolates are reported per month.

Multiple brands of dry pet food produced by Diamond Pet Foods at a single manufacturing facility in South Carolina have been linked to some of the human Salmonella infections. People who think they might have become ill after contact with dry pet food or with an animal that has eaten dry pet food should consult their health care providers.

So far, among the 14 individuals reported having the infection, five were hospitalized — and no deaths have been reported.

Public health investigations are ongoing to determine if other brands of dry dog food produced at the South Carolina facility are also contaminated with Salmonella – and possibly linked to human illnesses.

The Bottom Line
What’s especially troubling about this story is that the illnesses date back to October 8, 2011 – almost 7 months ago.

This fact alone makes the health complaints reported by many of our readers under some of the Diamond product reviews on this website more noteworthy. For this reason, we’re now becoming increasingly suspicious of the actual extent of Diamond’s Salmonella contamination issue.

And so, we must recommend special caution if you’re feeding any product manufactured by Diamond at its South Carolina plant.

Unfortunately, it’s still unclear which products are produced at that location. So, without more information from Diamond Pet Foods or the FDA, it’s impossible for anyone to reliably predict if – or when – another recall may materialize.

What to Do
I can’t stress enough how important it is to check the Diamond Pet Foods Recall website for exact products, images and production codes associated with the recall.


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