This is cut and pasted bits from other forums
-------------------------------------------------------
Please be careful out there.
I wont name names as it is not my place to do so, but EVERYBODY, please be carefull when working in your ponds.
Last week, a top end Koi dealer over here in the UK and his dad were installing a nexus to his already well filtered spotless home pond. Somehow or other while the work was being done, his dad cut his finger, not sufficient to justify stopping work though, so they carried on till the job was done.
Next day he felt unwell and was very shivery which was dismissed as a chill. The doctor diagnosed flu.
The next 48 hours saw deterioration till an ambulance had to be called, and he was rushed to hospital with septacemia. This led on to kidney problems, the treatment of which has caused a bleed on the brain. That treatment has had to be stopped so the bleed can be corrected, and he is currently on a LIFE SUPPORT MACHINE !!
Obviously, everyone who knows the family are all praying for his recovery, and I consider it my duty to pass on the warning that no matter how clean you think your pond and its water are, it is still possible to catch a life threatening infection, if you expose any cuts to your water.
Safer still, get yourselves some latex gloves and WEAR them when you are working round the pond and filters, and when you have finished, wash your hands with disinfectant, EVERY TIME !!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Many thanks for the many kind words for my dad.
We are hopeful he is doing ok, basically he has septacemia (sp?), blooding poisoning, the source of which we do not, and probably will never, know for definite. He is responding to antibiotics, certainly one they've used in Gentamycin.
However, there is one thing I know and it will change my whole attitude and routine when dealing with the pond and handling koi.
On Friday we fitted my nexus. In doing so my dad cut his finger however continued to work on the pond which included getting his cut finger wet with water directly from the bottom drain.
By Saturday afternoon and evening he felt unwell and was very shivery which was dismissed as a chill, the doctor diagnosed he had flue. The next 48 hours saw deterioration until the point my mum called an ambulance.
Whilst we will never know whether the cut and the pond water had any part to play in causing the condition he is now I know for sure I will be extremely vigilant when working around the pond and koi, something i've always been rather blase about.
From now on I will ensure that I always where latex gloves when treating koi and handling medications etc (I know this is common sense but do we all do it?).
If I am maintaining the pond and have any cuts etc I will ensure water proof gloves are warn.
Finally I will be obtaining some of the disinfectant Cutan Alcohol Gel as used in the hospital, and particularly on my dad's High Dependency Unit to prevent the spread of bacteria and ensuring that whenever work has been done on koi or on the pond my hands and disinfected thoroughly.
Some may consider the above over the top however if, and it may
--------------------------------------------------------
An update as of yesterday 27th March, 5.03pm uk time.
" We have a tiny glimmer of hope today but we`ll cling to any given that 4/5 days ago we expected to be advised that they would turn off the life support system"
"The blood filter was removed yesterday morning as the filter had been used up. The consultant decided to try to bring dad out of sedation and get him to breathe on his own. It was quite likely/possible that dad would not actually come round due to the damage that may have been done to the brain".
"Throughout the day yesterday there were minimal signs of responsiveness, although he was breathing probably 3 breaths spontaneously to every 1 assisted by the machine."
"When we left the hospital we were a little despondant as the positive signs had not really been what we`d expected."
"This morning the consultant was quite positive, he had applied `forced pain` and got a positive reaction indicating that dad knew where the pain was, meaning that there was brain activity. If there had been none, then the life support machine would have been switched off. Throughout today there have been increased signs, so whilst far from swinging from the lampshades, we are rather more bouyant than we have been for some days".
"There are still some very very serious issues facing dad for now. The kidneys are still not working, and the blood filter they require could cause a brain bleed again. They have also found a leaky heart valve which naturally could cause the heart to fail, and they have made it clear that if that happened, they would not attempt to restart it in view of the other problems."
"The road is still very long and we are about 4 days further forward than we anticipated."
My Dad lost his fight for life today. At 3pm this afternoon life support systems were switched off as, following a serious brain bleed during the night, he was clinically brain dead.
Anyone who new my Dad knows that he would do anything for anyone and played a major part in mine and the whole family's lives and at just 58 he has been ripped from us far too early.
Below the last picture I have of him, doing what he did so often, helping me out with my 'great' ideas, on this occasion getting the Nexus across the fish house and shed.
This article was posted by thom blischok on 12/30/2003 on the N/I web site. Many thanks to thom & Nigel for providing the info below. If anyone wants the full transcrpit, please e-mail me1
Zoonotic Diseases (Diseases involving transmission from fish to man)
Posted by thom blischok on 12/30/2003, 10:51 pm
User logged in as: thombl
152.163.252.33
Fellow NI'ers,
The idea mentioned in the post below of "swimming with the fishes" brought to mind some rather interesting research collected over the years regarding the actual transmission of diseases from fish to man. Much of the research focuses on the eating of raw fish so we will discount that in this post needless to say eating raw fish has it risks -- and the context of this post will address us as koi keepers.
We all as koi keepers handle fish at one time or another and most of us simply wash our hands. Most of us dont disinfect prior to the handling of the fish nor do we disinfect after the handling episode. I am among the many who take only the most basic precautions that was before a personal episode with a severe Aeromonas infection on my third finger on my right hand that lasted several weeks with lots of antibiotics. I was treating a friends pond with a severe Aeromonas problem and simply didnt take the proper medical sterilization precautions I should have we all live and learn.
We as humans can by adversely affected by Bacteria from a koi pond (both gram positive and gram negative) as well as parasites. To date there have been no reported cases of viral Zoonotic transmissions between fish and man but I will discuss some interesting observations later in this post regarding virus transmissions.
Bacterial transmission from fish to man are best characterized as being opportunistic -- that is the development of a bacterial disease often requires a preexisting state that has compromised the human immune system such as a preexisting wound infection or open sore. And it is possible to ingest water from a pond and actually create an internal infection in the mouth, stomach, gastrointestinal tract.
The majority of the bacterial infections transmitted from fish to man result from gram negative bacteria Aeromonas and Pseudomonas. There are very few reported cases of bacterial infections from gram positive bacteria such as Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Erysipelothrix (typically found in fish mucous), and Mycobacterium (nonmotile acid fast rods). The reported incidences of any of the gram positive infections are minimal so I wont spend any time on this subject.
However the gram negative bacterial transmission between fish and humans is quite different, and should be of much greater concern when we handle our fish.
Aeromonas the primary culprit is Aeromonas hydrophilia as we know this organism will produce septicemia in koi quite easily. Humans can get an Aeromonas infection from koi via one of two paths the first is the handling of koi with an open wound or sore and not taking the proper medical sterilization and/or protection procedures like gloves, etc. The second is by ingesting water perhaps from swimming with infected koi. The site based infection can have several degrees of severity ranging from a superficial site infection to cellulitis deep muscle necrosis and/or septicemia. Most individuals who contract an Aeromonas infection can simply treat it with mild antibiotics but for those individuals with suppressed immune systems the infection can be quite severe with reported cases of chronic septicemia. With water ingestion, the effects can be quite extreme characterized by diarrheic states ranging from mild to acute and self limiting to chronic and unresolving.
Aeromonas is not a bacterium to be easily discounted anytime a fish keeper handles a fish with Aeromonas they should take significant precautions in both pre and post sterilization. Doing otherwise has the potential of being quite dangerous to the fish handler.
Pseudomonas Unlike Aeromonas, Pseudomonas fluorescens infrequently produces a septecemic disease in a pond. Although the potential exists for this organism to produce infections in humans with compromised immune systems, there have been no reported cases of Pseudomonas related to exposure to fish in the US.
There are several other gram negative bacterium (Enterobacteriaceae, and Leptospirosis) that have the potential for transmission from fish to humans but their reported cases are minimal to nonexistent.
Parasites The incidence of parasitic zoonoses attributable to fish is quite small. I could not find any reported cases of transmission via handling of fish. However, if a fish keeper were to handle a fish with a parasitic infection, keep their hands moist, and then in some fashion, place their fingers in their mouth (say having lunch, etc.) there is the potential of ingesting a live parasite into the gastrointestinal tract (miniscule chance at best). There is one reported case of a parasite entering the human through an open wound.
As we all would expect most parasitic transmissions come from ingestion not from handling. If one were to get a parasitic infection from handling the following symptoms are likely mild to severe intestinal cramps mild to acute abdominal pain if the parasite burrows into the intestinal walls they can produce an acute illness that may be clinically indistinguishable from gastric ulceration and/or appendicitis. But, all of parasitic infestations are remote possibilities at best.
Viruses No human infections of virus transmission form fish have been reported. There is some research (Scholtissek and Naylor, 1988) suggesting that fish handlers (specifically fish farming) may contribute to the development of human influenza that is fish handlers are more susceptible to the "flu bug" than non-fish handlers. Their research suggests that aquaculture ponds can be fertile areas for the growth of both fish and human influenza strains. Interesting but I wouldnt spend a lot of time concerning myself about viral transmissions between fish and man.
So, going back to the original post below about "swimming with the fishes" does have its risks. Of greater interest to me regarding this post is the development of a proper fish handling protocol.
What I do now is to thoroughly "scrub" before and after each time I handle my fish. If I am dealing with an infested fish surgical gloves and mask are my only option I dont want to take the chance of ingesting any of the "infected" area of the fish by the fish moving/thrashing. Finally, I do a post treatment bactericidal wash with betadyne soap to insure that all the "critters" are gone.
All of us take can take for granted the "handling of fish and I wont get infected syndrome". Speaking as one who did get infected it was not a pleasant experience nor was it a short one.
Id appreciate all thoughts on this post should we as koi keepers be more diligent in the handling of our fish especially when an infection is present?
Thoughts from a simple koi keeper.........
Posted on Mar 29, 2005, 9:27 PM from IP address 81.79.3.168