By Amy Norton
New York - Petting zoos and their customers need to pay more attention to hygiene in order to prevent animal-transmitted infections, a Canadian study suggests.
Researchers who sent observers to 36 petting zoos found that although most had some sort of facility for hand washing, less than one-third of patrons used them.
What's more, parents often brought items into the zoos that could easily convey infection to young children - including baby bottles, "sippy" cups, pacifiers and infant toys.
For their part, petting zoos fell short in a number of hygiene areas, according to the study reported in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Several zoos featured animals that are high risk for transmitting infections, such as newborn calves and baby chicks.
Furthermore, nearly one-third of animals at the zoos showed signs of ill health, like skin lesions or diarrhea.
When it came to promoting proper hygiene, the researchers found, fewer than half of the zoos had signs advising visitors to use the hand hygiene stations.
Animals at petting zoos can transmit a range of range of illness-causing germs, including E coli and salmonella bacteria. Petting zoos have been tied to outbreaks of intestinal illness caused by E. coli O157:H7, a type that is especially dangerous to children younger than five.
The new findings suggest that petting zoo operators and the public alike need more education on proper hygiene, the study authors conclude.
"The most important factor is hand hygiene," lead author Dr Scott Weese, of the University of Guelph in Ontario, told Reuters Health.
Parents should make sure everyone in the family washes their hands after being in a petting zoo, even if they haven't touched the animals.
Most zoos have facilities for this, but "it can't hurt" to bring hand-sanitising gel along on the trip, Weese noted.
In addition, he said, baby bottles, cups or any other item that children put in their mouths have no place in the petting zoo.
The point is not to scare families away from these zoos, Weese and his colleagues note. All things considered, Weese said, a trip to the petting zoo can be considered a "low-risk" event.
Some zoos, though, would be best avoided, according to the researcher - namely, the sites that look poorly run or have clearly sick animals.
"If I came across a petting zoo that looked run-down, with no hand hygiene facilities, poor design, beat-up pens," Weese said, "I wouldn't take my family in."
SOURCE: Clinical Infectious Diseases, July 1, 2007.