Infection Is Conjunctivitis Zoonotic (human-animal,animal-human contagious)?

[treehugger]

Does anyone know if Conjunctivitis in guinea pigs is zoonotic? My guinea pig Newton has Conjunctivitis but I won't be able to get him to my vet until next monday (6 days), can it be passed on to me? Online all I can really find pertains to cats and dogs and as you guys know rodents can have a whole different set of bacterias, viruses. and parasites. With cats and dogs it says conjunctivitis is not Zoonotic. Is it contagious to me from my guinea pig?

 

[pinky]

Depends upon whether it's viral or bacterial and you won't know unless you have a vet determine that. Viruses are normally species specific, although they have crossed over species in some cases such as Avian and Swine Flu. Bacterial infections do cross species. If a dog or cat has bacterial conjunctivitis, it is contagious. If it's viral, it's not. I'd treat it as if it's bacterial and be very careful handling him until you can have him treated.

 

[bpatters]

How do you know it's conjunctivitis?

 

[pinky]

Conjunctivitis is simply redness and swelling of the conjunctiva so it's easy to tell from looking at it. What's causing it is what's important to find out so it can be treated if needed. It can also be due to an allergic reaction or an irritant.

 

[bpatters]

I know what conjunctivitis is. I'm not sure if treehugger does. If what s/he's seeing is dried cleaning fluid or runny eyes from a URI, things need to go in different directions, and possibly much quicker than next week.