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Biotech / Medical : Share your aches,pains,experiences,joys and cures. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (974)	7/7/2007 3:36:47 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1564

Pet birds - can cause serious disease in small children, the elderly, the sick: A physician told one of the parents in that classroom that birds can be very dangerous and that he was appalled that the school would permit such a risk. The obviously concerned parent threatened to remove the child from the class if the bird was not taken away. I was asked to intervene to help calm the waters. Even though I knew that this bird posed little real risk to the children, I decided to research the literature for published articles that could support my opinion. I found multiple articles written not only by veterinarians, but also by many medical researchers and epidemiologists from the Center for Disease Control (the bastion for the study of communicable diseases). Most of the published material relates to zoonotic diseases that are considered dangerous to people with a compromised immune system. Currently these people fall into four groups: * Newborn infants & the elderly * Patients on chemotherapy (including high doses of prednisone) * People infected with HIV * Organ transplant recipients on immunosuppresive drugs Why does the literature focus on these groups? These people are at a much higher risk, given that they are less likely to be able to fight off a disease that may be spreading through their body. What was most interesting was that in all the articles that I read, not a single one suggested that pet birds posed a large risk for people within these groups or to the average pet owner. Even if the risk is low, it is essential to be very aware that a potential risk does exist. As such, I will talk about the major diseases that are considered a zoonotic risk. No attempt will be made to be all inclusive given that such in-depth information is beyond the scope of this forum... I will also leave out the hundreds of diseases that are found in wild birds in other countries. These pose almost no threat, unless the reader routinely imports wild caught birds. I have divided the diseases into groups (bacterial, parasitic, fungal, etc.) 1) Fungal Diseases: Within this group, there are two serious threats. The first is mycobacteriosis (the group of fungi that includes the agent that causes tuberculosis). There are over 50 mycobacterial species which can cause disease in humans and animals. M. tuberculosis is the agent that causes tuberculosis in humans. M. avium and M. genavense are the two species that most commonly cause disease in pet birds. Although mycobacterial disease is common in up to 80- of AIDS patients1, during the past 15 years, there has never been a confirmed case of transmission occurring from a pet bird. Even the suggestion that exotic pets act as potential environmental sources of these organisms, has never been proven. An article2 by doctors from various branches of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Center for Disease Control states: