What diseases can be transmitted through skin contact with a dead rabbit?
About a month ago, my youngest son found a dead rabbit in the woods while camping and brought me to the spot to show it. The rabbit looked like it had just died and didn't show any obvious cause of death.
Even though denying it, I made him wash his hands since I suspected he might have touched it (despite me having told him to never touch dead animals found in the woods).
He later admitted having petted it briefly.
Are there any diseases that could have been transmitted through the brief fur to skin contact? Any ones that I still need to worry about?
This is in The Netherlands, more specifically in the province of Zeeland.
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1 answer
To answer the title question, there are a number of diseases you can get from wild rabbits,
Zoonotic diseases specifically associated with rabbits include pasteurellosis, ringworm, mycobacteriosis, cryptosporidiosis and external parasites.
Rabbits can transmit bacteria through bites and scratches. One of the common agents involved is Pasteurella multocida, a bacterium that resides in the oral cavity and upper respiratory tract of rabbits. Human infection is generally characterized by local inflammation with occasional abscess formation and ascending infection.
Zoonoses Associated with Rabbits
Regarding ticks and fleas,
but the species of fleas and ticks typically found on rabbits rarely bite humans, and the risk of transmission of zoonotic disease from rabbits to humans via such bites is considered low.
There is also a longer list of diseases here including Mange, Rabies (possible but never recorded) and Tularemia.
At the same time, it would seem that the risk is rather low as people hunt and handle rabbits from time to time.
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