Deb Rebel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
>
>I know that most diseases are one host specific...but some
>can and do cross barriers and survive and thrive in multiple
>hosts. Else a lot of the research over the years in medicine
>and pharmaceuticals with animals for the benefit of humans
>would not have been possible.
>
>I don't know if you remember the 'swine flu'....it crossed
>the barrier in Asia from pigs to humans, then spread. It
>was a flu virus...
>
Of course viral diseases can cross species barriers. But it is a rare
phenomenon and is usually facilitated by blood to blood transfer.
<Vision of man bites gerbil comes to mind! :) >
I would be interested in any evidence you have of gerbils catching human
colds because this is an important matter and if it happens, we need to
educate the veterinary profession. (I mean this seriously - I take our
role in making sure vets understand gerbils seriously).
What I think may happen is that humans with bacterial conditions like a
sore throat may be able to pass on streptococcal infections but I have
no evidence of this. Someone with the relevant facilities should be able
to grow the necessary cultures to test this fairly easily.
BTW, I forgot to mention in my earlier message, that I have read a fair
bit about attempts to get gerbils infected with rabies. This is because
rabies is a major problem in Africa and affects agriculture. There have
been many projects to study rabies in various potential host animals to
understand how the disease is transferred from animal to animal and from
species to species. The studies also look at how vaccination campaigns
work. This is important because some rabies vaccines can cause some
animals to catch an infectious form of rabies.
An example of how these experiments work is one that I remember. Wild
animals, including gerbils were captured in Africa and checked to see if
they had rabies. Feed stuffs, containing an oral vaccine were left out
for animals to eat. Animals were captured to se if the level of rabies
had gone up or down. At no point in any of these studies has any gerbil
had rabies.
I am certainly not saying that gerbils cannot get rabies, but studies
from all over the world looking for rabid gerbils has ever found any!
(On the other hand - wild gerbils in Africa and Asia are known to carry
Bubonic Plague, a bacterial infection).
--
Julian
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
National Gerbil Society
http://www.gerbils.co.uk/
