African Dwarf Frogs Transmit Salmonella

A CDC investigation has found that African dwarf frogs, which are popular as aquarium pets, can transmit salmonella to people.

Pet African dwarf frogs harboring salmonella have sickened at least 113 people, most of them children, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

“This is the first multistate outbreak of salmonella associated with frogs,” says Shauna Mettee, a public health nurse at the CDC in Atlanta who presented the findings October 22 in Vancouver, Canada, at a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

CDC investigators became curious when doctors began reporting a spate of cases of the typhimurium subspecies of salmonella in 2009. Between April 2009 and March 2010, Mettee and her colleagues identified 113 cases of this infection, three-fourths occurring in children under age 10.

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Kirtland Peterson