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Can your pets catch your cold?
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This ferret is not sick, just comfy and slowly waking from a nap. Want proof?
Open the cage door and see how fast he hops out of that hammock!
You’ve probably seen the scare stories about exotic pets causing dangerous or even deadly disease in unsuspecting owners, but what about the reverse problem: Can your pets get ill because you’ve been sick? The short answer is, it depends.
In general, other mammals are more likely to trade illnesses than mammals and, say reptiles or birds. Of course, reptiles can carry salmonella bacteria that will make people ill—thus the importance of hand-washing after handling snakes, lizards, turtles, etc.—but reptiles rarely develop infections from humans.
Cats and dogs do develop cold- or flu-like infections, but different viruses than human cold and influenza viruses cause the feline and canine illnesses. The current H1N1 version of the influenza type A viruses that infect humans has been nicknamed “swine” flu because it carries genetic similarities to a version first identified in pigs. The “avian” flu variants that made headlines in Asia a few years ago can be much more deadly, but luckily those viruses cross-infect from birds to people much more rarely.
However, other mammals can get the human flu—and this fact is used to test influenza vaccine effectiveness. An article published by a research group in the Netherlands “Animal models in influenza vaccine testing” (Expert Rev Vaccines, 2008 Aug), notes that mice, ferrets and macaques can all be so used.
I had read up on previous influenza outbreaks earlier this summer and autumn, and I’d already noticed the information about ferrets being used to test flu vaccines. So when our family came down with a flu-like chest infection a few weeks back, my first thought was to limit contact with Nicolai, our resident ferret. I made sure I washed my hands before cleaning his cage and refilling his food and water as well as after. And I tried not to cough while in the room with him—certainly made sure I coughed into my sleeve.
Apparently my precautions worked. Nicolai sulked a bit for the lack of the usual attention and the restricted out-of-cage time, but he didn’t get sneezy or wheezy or otherwise generally miserable-looking and lethargic.
And lest you accuse me of overthinking the whole protect-my-pet-weasel issue, a veterinarian in Portland OR decided to submit a swab to the Oregon State Public Health Veterinarian after examining a ferret with a respiratory infection on October 5 because its owner had been ill with the flu. Oregon State University labs reported on October 8 that the ferret tested positive for H1N1, a result confirmed by the US Department of Agriculture the following day.
Given the relatively small number of ferret owners in the US and the relative isolation of ferret households from each other, ferrets do not constitute a potential reservoir for human infection. However, the human disease could have serious repercussions for pet ferrets that might have any underlying immune problems or other disease—so do protect your ferrets from people with flu-like symptoms.
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