Health corner

February 10-16, 2014

By Kay Bona

A pet turtle is a neat pet. I remember having two of them when I was young, and fixing their little cage up with all the sand and stuff. My son, Bobby, has one he found years ago, aptly named “Mr. Turtle”, and it was no larger than a half-dollar. Now the thing is huge! But Mr. Tuttle is happy in his little home!

Although turtles may look laid back and harmless, there are some precautions you need to take, especially if you have young children.

There was a story in the news a while back about a three-week old baby girl in Florida who died of a salmonella infection linked to her family’s small pet turtle. The infant had been sick for a day before being taken to a hospital emergency room and then immediately transferred to a pediatric hospital. She had a fever, went into shock, and died on March 1, 2007.

According to the CDC reports, spinal fluid cultures and blood samples from the infant showed she was infected with the same type of salmonella carried by the turtle.

Salmonella can be transmitted to humans by direct or indirect contact with a turtle or its feces. Salmonellosis is an infection of the intestines caused by bacteria salmonella. Symptoms may include diarrhea, stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, and headache. Symptoms begin in six to 72 hours after a person is exposed and generally last for two to seven days.

Salmonella can be found on the outer skin and shell surfaces of the turtles, causing salmonellosis if hands aren’t washed afterward.

The FDA prohibited the distribution and sale of baby turtles with shells four inches in length or less in 1970 after a quarter million infants and small children were diagnosed with having turtle-associated salmonellosis. The agency believed that turtles with shells larger than four inches do not pose the same threat since youngsters would not likely try to fit them into their mouths.

If your family owns a pet turtle, the CDC provides this information to help prevent salmonella infection from reptiles and amphibians.

• Always wash your hands with soap and water after handling reptiles, amphibians, or their cages.

• People at increased risk for salmonella infection (such as children less than five years old and people with weak immune systems) should avoid contact with reptiles and amphibians.

• Reptiles and amphibians should be kept out of homes of people with children younger than five or people with weak immune systems.

• Families expecting a new child should give their pet reptiles and amphibians away before the child arrives.

• Don’t let reptiles and amphibians roam freely around the home.

• Keep reptiles and amphibians out of kitchens.

• Don’t bathe or clean the cages of pet reptiles or amphibians in the kitchen sink.

• If you wash pet reptiles or amphibians in a bathtub, clean the tub thoroughly afterward.