Animal Diseases and Your Health: Staying Safe Around Farm Animals, Wildlife and Pets

Diseases that people can catch from animals are called zoonoses. Many human diseases can be traced to animals or animal products. You can catch one directly from an animal, or indirectly, through the environment.

Farm animals

Farm animals can carry diseases. If you touch them, or things they have touched such as fences or buckets, wash your hands thoroughly — and make sure children who visit farms or petting zoos wash up too.

Wild animals

However cute, wild animals may carry germs, viruses and parasites.

• Deer and deer mice carry the ticks that cause Lyme disease.
• Some wild animals may carry rabies.

Enjoy wildlife from a distance.

Pets

Pets can make you sick too, though the chance that your dog or cat will is small.

• Reptiles are a particular risk: turtles, snakes and iguanas can pass Salmonella bacteria to their owners.
• You can get rabies from an infected dog.
• You can get toxoplasmosis from handling the litter of an infected cat.

To lower the risk:

• practise good hygiene;
• keep pet areas clean;
• keep your pets' vaccinations up to date.

Sources

• "Animal Diseases and Your Health," MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://medlineplus.gov/animaldiseasesandyourhealth.html
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.