Are there illnesses my ratties catch/give me?

Question
What exactly is mycoplasma? Can people get it from rats?
What illnesses do rats give people? My family is upset that we have pet rats and I am pregnant. I want to be sure that the rats cannot give my baby  diseases and that I cant give them any. I red where strep throat can be given from rats to people. How true is this? I have read your responses and trust your opinion. thank you

Answer
Hi Marianne

Let me start off by saying congRATS on your pending bundle of joy!
Now on to the question:
First of all, you ask what Mycoplasmosis is, so I will address this first.
Myco is a bacteria that lack cell walls. Because they lack cell walls, they are unaffected by antibiotics such as penicillin and various other antibiotics so a Vet must be aware of the actions of the drugs used when treating our rats and realize this major fact about myco. The most common drugs to use for myco is baytril with doxycline given as well because the combo of the two drugs tends to work very well rather than given without each other. Also, zithromax works on bacteria that lack cell walls and should be used in both young and adult rats safely. Baytril should not be used in young rats unless the benefits outweigh the risks. Myco is also a very slow growing bacteria that all rats are born with as it is passed down from the rats mother from birth.
Myco is slow growing so it usually doesn't start to show signs of illness from it until the rat is older, usually over 6 months of age. Often, other illnesses seen in young rats are secondary infections and not caused by mycoplasmosis. Even though all rats are born with myco,some rats never seem to be troubled by the variety off ailments that myco causes. The key to avoiding myco outbreaks is to try to prevent them in the first place by maintaining a healthy diet for your pet rat, keeping the cage free of irritants such as dirty litter laced with strong ammonia scent from the rats urine, using dusty litter that can cause the lungs to weaken or using litter with dangerous phenol oils in it such as PINE or CEDAR and isolating all new rats for 3 weeks in a separate airspace from your existing rats to watch for signs of illness. Please see my website about proper quarantine measures.
Myco causes many ailments, with a respiratory infection resembling TB in humans as the number one cause of serious problems in rats. Pulmonary infection from myco may become chronic and when this happens, the rats lungs become damaged with scarring or even blisters. Although its a scary thing to go through, proper treatment can save the rat and medication used daily to prevent relapse and avoid further damage to the lungs has been used with success.
Myco can also cause infection in female rats involving the uterus and it also causes otits media (inner ear infection) and urinary tract infection as well. Once again, antibiotics that do not need to invade and destroy the cell wall in order to be effective must be used which I mentioned earlier in the above paragraph.
As far as other illnesses go, there are few diseases that rats carry to humans. The domestic rat has been shielded from catching any type of illnesses that wild rats may come in contact with and even a field rat or mouse is exempt from many of those diseases since they contract that often from sewers and living among human waste etc... Rats are NOT natural carriers of the rabies virus much to contrary belief. Chances that the small animal would even survive the attack  of a rabid animal and live long enough for the virus to incubate, infect the rat and transmit it through a bite is pretty low. In fact, there has never been any documented case of a rat transmitting rabies to humans in the United states!  Bats,Opossums,fox, raccoon and skunks are known carriers of the rabies virus and what I mean by that is these animals can be infected with the virus yet not display any outward signs or symptoms of it. Yes that is a scary thought since if untreated, rabies can kill a human being and there is no known cure. Education is KEY when it comes to this virus.  You can search the rabies virus if you want more information which I am sure there are tons of sites about it floating on the internet.
As for Strep throat, let me dismiss this myth that has been floating around the internet for way too long. There is NO WAY that rats can catch strep throat. They strain of strep that causes strep throat is not one of the streps that rats can harbor. There are numerous strains of step bacteria.
Our rats can develop a deadly form of pneumonia caused by strep, but again, it is not the same form of strep.
Rats may catch and also transmit "ring worm" which is a fungal infection(and scalp and also the nail bed in humans)
  In fact, a good example of ring worm in humans is "Athletes foot" which  many of us suffer from daily.

Also, conjunctivitis, or better known as "pink eye" is another thing we can give our rats. Pink eye is highly contagious among humans and passed to many species of animals that its to numerous to mention.

You did not mention if your rats were showing signs of illness so I am hoping your just asking about disease just for peace of mind and to provide some insight to your family so they don't worry about your unborn child.

Hope this helped. I don't mean to make such long posts. In fact this is so typical of me since I write brochures and articles about rat health and this tends to spill over into my answers here. I try to cover as much as I can without writing a small novel or putting the reader to sleep!
ZZzzzz

:-)

Sandra Todd