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Fluffy Sue
Site Admin
Geregistreerd op: 13-1-2005
Berichten: 42517
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| Papegaaienbeten |
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Reactie van een dierenarts op mijn vraag over papegaaienbeten:
Mycobacterium avium is one of a group of bacteria that causes tuberculosis! No bird (or human) has this as part of their "normal" flora. It used to be seen occasionally in imported birds, especially Brotogeris species, like canary-winged parakeets. I have seen it rarely in older Amazons. These days, when most of our pets are domestically raised or wild-caught but living here for many years (without becoming symptomatic, therefore having much less chance of harboring the bacteria), this infection is quite rare, indeed.
While M. avium can cause tuberculosis in people, especially if they are babies or otherwise immune-compromised, this species of Mycobacterium is not even the one that commonly causes tuberculosis in people - that is Mycobacterium bovis. Furthermore, a bird infected with Mycobacterium avium could infect a human, but the common route of infection is not ingestion or wound invasion, it is inhalation of dried fecal dust that contains the bacteria.
As for the rabies issue - there is one report in the literature of a great horned owl shedding the virus in it's mouth. It is presumed he ate a rabid bat. The bird did not get rabies and lived with no symptoms and quit shedding the virus. Birds have too high a body temperature for the virus to survive, so they cannot carry it.
Healthy birds (psittacines not infected by abnormal bacteria) have no bacteria in their mouths (or GI tract) that are infectious to people. That may not be true of carnivorous birds, like vultures, or even omnivorous birds like crows, but parrots don't.
The normal flora in birds (again, I'm talking about psittacines here, not vultures and other birds that eat mammals and their remains) does differ from those in people, but theirs is not generally infectious to us. Ours, however, can be to them. We carry several types of gram negative bacteria normally that they may not be able to tolerate.
There is a myth that pigeons carry fungus that can infect us, making their droppings dangerous. It turns out that they don't carry this fungus at all, but their droppings make a good place for it to grow. The fungus comes from the soil and uses the bird's droppings as a home and source of nutrients.
We, however, do have species of bacteria in our mouths that can cause opportunistic infections in them, including Mycoplasma (sounds a lot like Mycobacterium - hence the common confusion), and others. That is why wet kissing is not a good idea. Opportunistic just means that these bacteria won't easily infect a healthy system, but if there is a wound or if the bird is immune-compromised (like if he is stressed), then the bacteria may be able to take advantage and infect.
Many physicians recommend a tetanus shot if a patient has been bit by a bird. Tetanus is caused by a bacteria called Clostridium that lives in the form of spores in the soil. So if you are bitten by a bird that may have been rooting around in soil, this may be advisable. Not many of our pet parrots have access to soil, however, so this is a pretty low-odds possibility.
So if you are bitten by a pet parrot, the main concern is infection of the wound by Staphylococcus bacteria that is commonly found on our own skin. Their presence on our skin is absolutely normal, BTW - that is the main reason we use surgical scrubs to clean skin before surgery. |
Vrijdag 22 Juli 2005 9:15 am |
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Tijden zijn in GMT + 1 uur. Het is nu Donderdag 8 Januari 2009 6:40 pm
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