Animal microbes
They are so cute
How we feel for a puppy, a kitten, or even a newborn lamb today. Our four-legged friends are an important part of our lives, and not just cats and dogs. Indeed, new pets are also very fashionable and many families welcome birds, reptiles, spiders, and even rats.
Cute but …
Even healthy pets can carry germs and can transmit zoonotic diseases1.
How can they do this? By direct contact, by biting, by scratching, by eating
food (milk, meat) from an infected animal, by the intermediary of an arthropod
(mosquitoes, fleas or ticks which carry microbes), by the wind which can
sometimes carry dust carrying bacteria.
No need to panic
Pets can still be our best friends and the joy of their presence more than compensates for the risks of an infection. Let’s simply adopt the right behaviour to avoid the microbes that animals could transmit to us.