Handwashing will help reduce infection risk from farm visits
Health Protection Agency says sanitising gels should not be used as a substitute for handwashing
The UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) reports that there were 55 outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease linked to petting farms between 1992 to 2009 in England and Wales.
According to research published in Emerging Infectious Diseases1, the overall risk of infection is low when considering the millions of visits made to farms each year. However, these outbreaks led to 1,328 people becoming infected, of whom 113 were hospitalised. Illnesses ranged from mild to severe diarrhoea and occasionally more serious conditions.
E. coli O157 (55%) and Cryptosporidium (42%) caused the majority of the infections. Outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis occurred more often in spring, whereas E. coli O157 infections were more common in mid to late summer, especially during August.
People of all ages became ill but more children under the age of 10 were affected because they are vulnerable to serious illness from these infections, particularly E. coli O157.
The HPA says children under the age of five are also more likely to pick up these infections because their personal hygiene is not as well developed – for example, at that age they are more prone to sticking fingers, thumbs or toys into their mouths.
Contributory factors reported in the outbreaks included direct contact with pre-weaned animals – such as lambs, calves and kid goats – or direct contact with the faeces of animals such as cattle, sheep and goats. Inadequate hand washing facilities at the farms was another important factor.
Other risk factors include bottle-feeding lambs and reliance on sanitising hand gels instead of handwashing, since gels are not effective in killing bugs such as E. coli O157 or Cryptosporidium.
Lead author Dr Fraser Gormley, an epidemiologist from the department of gastrointestinal, emerging and zoonotic Infections at the HPA, said: ‘Avoiding direct contact with animals and their droppings is the surest way of avoiding infection but appropriate awareness of hygiene and supervision of children by parents and teachers will help to ensure that children do not become ill as a result of farm visits.’
Gormley added that handwashing is the single most important prevention step in reducing transmission of gastrointestinal infections after handling animals.
‘Visitors should also be made aware that using sanitising gels is not a substitute for washing hands with soap and hot water and drying them, as gels may fail to remove contamination in the way that soap and running water can. However it is likely that using sanitising gels following handwashing with soap and water may provide extra benefit.’
1. Gormley et al. Transmission of Cryptosporidium spp. at petting farms, England and Wales www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/ Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2010