The Puffer Forum

cant really blame the kids parents for blaming the aquarium considering its called fish handlers disease...but since the test on aquarium show no bacteria that should answer the question

Maybe they were able to clean it up quickly? I am really interested in how this case turns out.

Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae has to enter via scrapes or cuts. Parents letting their children with small or large wounds on their hands grab into a tank are the problem here. Don't grab into water with animals (nature or aquarium) with even small wounds period. There can be much worse things than Erysipelothrix in there...

These bacteria can be in every "petting tank" in small numbers, in fact they are not uncommon on the skin of animals of various kinds. Even if found in the aquarium this would not show the child was infected there (due to uneducated parents). You'd have to use very specific methods of electrophoresis to identify the strain and even then...

What doesn't add up to me is why he had to have surgery? Fish handler's disease is easily treatable by antibiotics.

Can in some cases reach deeper tissue organs, where infected tissue may have to be removed in addition to antibiotic therapy.

Fine, then I'm gonna sue Justin Bieber, cause when I hear his "music" in the mall I get sick and have to go buy rock albums to cure myself.

+1 I am with u on that one lol