Pets develop many of the same diseases as people, and people develop many of the same diseases as pets. Animal diseases may have the same name as human diseases, or be given a different name when the same disease occurs in an animal. Veterinarians recognize immortal pathogens and parasites cause chronic disease in animals, pathogens and parasites can be transmitted from pet-to-owner, and the same chronic diseases occur in animals and humans.
Ron Hines, DVM, Ph.D., lists and describes numerous pathogens transmitted from companion animals to humans. Alliece Summers, MS, DVM, describes common diseases in companion animals, which are remarkably similar to common chronic diseases in humans. Johannes Storz, DVM, Ph.D., reported chlamydia pathogens in animals have the same microbiology and can induce the same diseases in animals and humans. Peter Rabinowitz, MD MPH, and Lisa Conti, DVM, MPH, have described many health risks and chronic diseases arising from animal pathogens, and the importance of including animal contact in a medical history.
Harvard Medical School is the first medical school to offer an elective in veterinary medicine, in collaboration with Zoo New England. The intent of the collaboration is to promote communication between medical and veterinary professionals, and to enable understanding and monitoring of disease spread from one species to another. Medical training in animal pathogens will aid doctors in the recognition of the role of animal pathogens in chronic disease.
Summers A, 2014, COMMON DISEASES IN COMPANION ANIMALS, 3rd Ed; Rabinowitz, P and Conti L, 2010, HUMAN-ANIMAL MEDICINE, Saunders Elsevier; Storz J., 1971, Chlamydia and Chlamydia-Induced Diseases, Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas; Hines R, “Diseases We Catch from Our Pets, Zoonotic Illnesses of Dogs Cats and Other Pets”, Doi: 2ndchance.info/zoonoses.
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