Los riesgos del empleo de reptiles como animales de compañía

Abstract

Risk of use of reptiles as pets En los últimos años se ha incrementado el número de familias que tienen animales exóticos como mascotas, que en ocasiones actúan como reservorio de subespecies poco habituales de patógenos gastrointestinales. Se presenta el caso de un niño con gastroenteritis aguda por Salmonella arizonae, una subespecie de la Salmonella enterica cuyo reservorio es principalmente los reptiles. In the last years the number of families who have exotic animals as pets has been increased, sometimes acting as a reservoir of rare subspecies of gastrointestinal pathogens. We present the case of a child with acute gastroenteritis caused by S. arizonae (Salmonella enterica subspecies), whose main reservoir are reptiles.

Virulence factors of Salmonella spp. isolated from free‐living grass snakes Natrix natrix

“…serovars from reptiles to humans can lead to RAS. RAS cases are not monitored in Poland and are poorly monitored in some European countries, for example, Germany (Pees et al, 2013 ; Schneider et al, 2009 ), Belgium (Meervenne et al, 2009 ), France (Perez Costa et al, 2015 ; Horvath et al, 2016 ), the Netherlands (Mughini‐Gras et al, 2016 ), Norway (Bjelland et al, 2020 ), Portugal (Cota et al, 2021 ), Romania (Gavrilovici et al, 2017 ), and Spain (Bertrand et al, 2008 ; Perez Costa et al, 2015 ; Harris et al, 2010 ). On the other hand, the United States struggles with RAS and monitors the cases, noting even local outbreaks (Cain et al, 2009 , Meyer Sauteur et al, 2013 , Whiley et al, 2017 , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020 ).…”

Zoonotic potential and prevalence of Salmonella serovars isolated from pets

“…S. enterica subsp. arizonae was also the etiologic agent of RAS case in a 1-month-old French child [88], a two-year-old Spanish child [89] and three children from the UK [91]. In all cases, infants had contact with exotic reptiles kept in households.…”

“…A very similar case was also reported in Spain. The same Salmonella serovar was isolated from the turtle faecal sample and blood of a two-year-old girl who had severe complications including high fever, sunken eyes and, pasty mucosa [89]. Furthermore, in Italy, Corrente et al [13] conducted a crosssectional study among reptile owners in order to assess a potential link between the presence of Salmonella spp.…”

“…Considering reports from last 6 years and published by European scientists, reptile-associated salmonellosis with detection of the same Salmonella serovar in both patient's blood and reptile faeces was observed in Switzerland -2016 (years of publication) [90], UK (UK) -2015 [91], Romania -2017 [92], France -2015 [88,93] and Spain -2015 [88,89]. In Switzerland, the first case of reptile-associated sinusitis due to S. enterica subsp.…”

“…Infants and children <5 years old are the most frequently exposed to RAS infections [11,14,78,89,94,95]. One study performed in Taiwan revealed that 31% of RAS cases occurred in children less than 5 years of age and 17% occurred in children aged 1 year or younger [94].…”