Incidents demonstrate need for better sanitation and more crossreporting between animal and public health communities
Outbreaks of a strain of salmonella resistant to multiple drug treatments occurred in four animal care facilities in three states in late 1999 and early 2000. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated the outbreaks, which affected both cats and humans, and reported its findings in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases (Vol. 11, No. 8).
In an Idaho veterinary clinic, employees who had handled kittens sick with diarrhea came down with the illness; later, employees who had not handled the kittens became sick as well. Researchers found that sick employees had eaten meals in the clinic before becoming ill; though the clinic had a separate room for meals, employees had eaten on work surfaces instead.
In Minnesota, routine tests by the state health department (which cooperates with the state’s veterinary diagnostic laboratory as part of “integrated human animal surveillance”) picked up a pattern: five salmonella isolates from cats from the same county. All had come from a shelter in the area; later, human outbreaks occurred in two people who had recently adopted kittens from that shelter.
Washington state’s first studied outbreak occurred when 12 cats from different homes (all of whom roamed outdoors) were brought to a veterinary clinic with diarrhea and vomiting. Three people later got sick—two had handled the ill cats and the third had simply brought his cat to the clinic during the outbreak. A second outbreak in Washington occurred at another veterinary clinic, where two children whose cat had been treated for diarrhea and vomiting became ill. An employee of the clinic later got sick, too.
In their discussion of the findings, the authors noted that the shelter or clinic was the only common exposure possibility for the people who’d become infected. Recommendations for controlling future outbreaks include wearing gloves while cleaning cages and treating animals; washing hands once gloves have been removed; prohibiting eating or drinking in treatment and holding areas; and rapid, thorough cleaning of any areas contaminated with feces.
Pointing out that one of the outbreaks they looked into “may have been undetected without the routine comparison of human and veterinary laboratory data,” the researchers emphasized the need for partnerships among animal and human health agencies. “Considering recent outbreaks of zoonotic diseases such as West Nile virus and monkeypox infections, the continued threat of avian influenza, and the number of agents of bioterrorism that are zoonotic in nature, the integration of human and veterinary surveillance systems is of utmost importance in our public health infrastructure,” the researchers wrote.
Read the report in its entirety at the website of the journal, www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/index.htm.
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