Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Clinicobacteriological Study of Pasteurella multocida as a Zoonosis

1992; Volume: 66; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.11150/kansenshogakuzasshi1970.66.221

1884-569X

Y Arashima, Kazunari Kumasaka, Kiyoko Okuyama, Masato Kawabata, Toshio Tsuchiya, Kinya Kawano, Ryuji Asano, S Hokari,

Poxvirus research and outbreaks

Pasteurella multocida is a gram-negative short rod-shaped bacteria, which is a part of the indigenous flora of the oral cavity of many animals other than man. The number ofreports on cases of infections with this bacterium due to animal bites and/or scratches, bacterial infections of the respiratory tract, sepsis due to this organism and death caused by the bacteria have been increasing in recent years.We investigated P. multocida in the hair and oral cavity of 3 dogs and 29 cats according to the classification of Mutters et al. We also studied the relationship between the carrier rate for Pasteurella in the oral cavity and kissing of pets in 24 pet owners (3 dogs and 11 cats).No P. multocida was isolated from the hair of neither dogs nor cats. One strain of P. multocida subsp. multocida and two strains of P. stomatis, were isolated from the oral cavity of dogs, and 35 strains of Pasteurella were isolated from the oral cavity of cats. Two strains ofP. multocida subsp. multocida, whose biochemical properties were different, were detected in the oralcavity of one cat. In three cats, Pasteurella other than P. multocida subsp. multocida was isolated from the same oral cavity. No Pasteurella was detected in the oral cavity of 19 pet owners who had not kissed their cats, whereas P. stomatis was isolated from the oral cavity of one of 2 pet owners who had kissed their cats and in 2 of 3 pet owners who had kissed their dogs (the same bacteria was isolated from a dogthat was being kept by some of these positive pet owners). When one of these three pet owners refrained from kissing the pet animal, and was re-examined one month later, no bacteria were detected. Therefore the infection was considered transient.The above results suggest that kissing pets can cause infections in humans.