Animal health professionals need to spread the word about small turtles and the potential for salmonella infections. Turtles carry the bacteria on their skin and shell, but they do not get sick. Of those persons infected this year, 41 percent are under the age of five and about 30 percent required hospitalization.
Source: CNN, May 19, 2016.
Between January 2015 and April of this year there have been four separate multi-state outbreaks of salmonella associated with touching turtles smaller than four inches long. In all, 133 individuals in 26 states have become sick. Thirty-eight of those individuals were so ill they were hospitalized, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Numbers are expected to rise.