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Hamsters: irresistibly cute little creatures. They're commonly known for scurrying around their sawdust-filled enclosures and sipping from their tiny water dispensers. Hamsters, along with mice, rats, and other rodents, are popular pets, particularly for children. However, these seemingly harmless animals have the potential to become dangerous.
Here are ten instances when these plump little rodents caused tragedy.
10. Thomas Magee, 2005
On one afternoon, a woman picked up her new pet from a PetSmart store in Rhode Island. The hamster was jittery, moving around rapidly inside his cardboard carrier during the car ride home. When she released him into his new cage, he bit her finger. It caused a small dot of blood, but she dismissed it, assuming he was just anxious about his new surroundings.
Shortly after, the woman experienced a stroke caused by unrelated factors. As a registered organ donor in the U.S., her family took comfort in knowing that her organs could help others live meaningful lives.
At that time, Massachusetts General Hospital was handling the care of Thomas Magee, who needed a liver transplant. The woman was a perfect match. The procedure was carried out with minimal complications, but five days later, Magee began suffering from high blood pressure and a fever.
A month after the surgery, Thomas Magee passed away.
In addition to the woman's liver, both her lungs and a kidney were donated and successfully transplanted into two recipients in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Tragically, both of these patients also later died.
The cause of death was traced to lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV). This virus, which rodents can sometimes transmit through saliva, typically manifests as cold or flu-like symptoms. Unfortunately, because transplant patients are immunosuppressed, the three recipients were vulnerable to the infection. This issue was not unique to these patients, as shown in the video above.
9. Hong Kong, 2022
On January 15th, 2022, a 23-year-old pet shop employee in Hong Kong tested positive for the Covid-19 Delta variant. This was considered highly unusual, as Hong Kong had successfully implemented a zero-Covid strategy.
Upon further investigation, authorities decided to test the animals at the pet shop for potential viral jump from animals to humans. They found SARS-CoV-2 in 11 out of 28 Syrian hamsters. These hamsters had contracted the virus in the Netherlands in 2021, where it spread among them during transit.
This resulted in an outbreak of about 50 Covid cases, which was quickly contained. As part of the containment efforts, around 2,000 pet shop hamsters and other small animals were collected and culled. However, no evidence suggested that anyone contracted the virus from the infected hamsters.
8. Hong Kong, 2013
This wasn’t the first time hamsters had caused an incident in Hong Kong. In April 2013, a young girl was playing with her pet hamster when suddenly, the hamster bit her on the pinky finger of her right hand. She calmly placed the hamster back into its cage, then went to the kitchen where her father tended to the small wound.
Not long afterward, the girl began experiencing cramps and lost consciousness. She was quickly rushed to the Prince of Wales hospital in Sha Tin, but it was too late—by 2 am, she was declared dead.
Dr. Anthony Ng Wing-Keung, a pediatrician, explained that since the girl had asthma, it was possible she experienced anaphylaxis, a rare but severe allergic reaction that can obstruct the airways.
7. Ashley Green, 2007
Ashley Green, a father of two, nearly met a similar fate as the young girl. In 2007, the British man was playing with the family hamster, Sydney, when the animal fell. As he reached out to catch it, the hamster bit his hand.
His wife recalls how “within seconds, he started to wheeze. I knew immediately it must be an allergic reaction, as the year before, he had a severe anaphylactic reaction to penicillin.”
The man's face began to turn pale, and he was rushed to a nearby hospital. Doctors fought for four days to stabilize his blood pressure. Fortunately, Green made a full recovery, and shortly after, Sydney was rehomed.
6. North America, 2005
In 2005, two young boys from South Carolina and Minnesota fell seriously ill. One had just bought a hamster, while the other had a small mouse. Unfortunately, both pets died soon after being brought home. However, the boys’ health continued to deteriorate, and soon others around them began suffering from abdominal cramps, fever, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea.
In total, six people were hospitalized. The symptoms aligned with severe salmonella infections, but the bacteria were resistant to five major antibiotics (ampicillin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline).
Ultimately, all 28 patients who contracted salmonella from hamsters survived.
5. United States, 1974
In a North American research lab, an unexplained outbreak caused medical staff to experience fever, chest pain, and general discomfort.
As some of the staff's conditions worsened, blood tests were conducted, revealing that the infection was lymphocytic choriomeningitis. This dangerous condition can be fatal, as its symptoms resemble those of meningitis and encephalitis. Additionally, it can lead to stiff neck muscles and seizures following infection.
After a period of time, the entire research team survived, though the lab's hamster population was greatly impacted.
4. United States, 1942
Another outbreak of lymphocytic choriomeningitis occurred in 1942, this time at a cancer research facility where workers were handling and breeding small rodents. The facility had been injecting the rodents with LCMV-infected tumor cells and had recently increased both the rodent population and the length of the experiments.
As a result, the viral load was deemed high enough for the virus to jump between species: seven employees contracted the virus, although no fatalities were reported.
3. United States, 2013
In August 2013, a 10-year-old child began experiencing vomiting, headaches, and leg pain. His doctor diagnosed him with a stomach virus and prescribed anti-nausea medication. He returned home, but over the next three days, his condition worsened dramatically before he collapsed.
Resuscitation efforts were made, but after an hour, they were deemed unsuccessful. The autopsy revealed a small scratch on the boy's body. Ten days prior, he had brought home a second pet rat. With growing suspicions, his liver was tested, along with one of the rats.
The test results came back positive for Streptobacillus moniliformis, the bacterium responsible for “Rat Bite Fever.” Around one in 10 bites from rats can lead to infection, and if untreated, the disease has a fatality rate of 13%.
2. United States, 1997
In May 1997, a young farmhand in the southwestern U.S. began experiencing severe respiratory distress and died quickly. Just days before, his fiancée had died in a similar manner. No viral matches could initially explain the deaths.
Dr. James Cheek of the Indian Health Service (IHS) remarked, “I think if it hadn’t been for that initial pair of people who fell ill within a week of each other, we never would have discovered the illness at all.”
Five more individuals quickly succumbed to a similar fate in the Four Corners region. The CDC initiated a full-scale response, sending tissue samples to laboratories and narrowing the cause down to a new strain of hantavirus.
The deer mouse was found to be the most infected rodent in the area, leading researchers to conclude that these mice were responsible for the rapid spread of the disease within the community. After isolating the new virus, it was named hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
1. Colombia, 2013
While these cases don’t involve Mesocricetus auratus, they still involve small pet rodents. Syrian hamsters could theoretically harbor similar viral loads. However, no direct cases involving pet hamsters have been reported.
In 2013, doctors in Colombia sought assistance from the CDC for a case involving a 41-year-old HIV-positive man who was experiencing fatigue, weight loss, fever, and coughing. Full-body scans revealed growths in his lungs, liver, and adrenal glands.
The scans of his lungs left the doctors utterly perplexed. The cancer cells were unusually small, about 10 times smaller than typical human cancer cells. Additionally, the tumor cells seemed to be merging together, an unusual occurrence not typically observed in human cancers.
After three months of extensive testing, the CDC discovered dwarf tapeworm DNA within the tumor cells. Sadly, just three days later, the man passed away. The conclusion was that the dwarf tapeworm that had infected him had mutated into cancerous tumors.
Dwarf tapeworms are quite common in rodents from pet shops. A genetic analysis and epidemiological survey revealed that 24.6% of hamsters, mice, and rats in pet shops carried Hymenolepis nana.
In reality, the development of cancer cells from a hamster infected with H. nana is an extraordinarily rare occurrence. Experts explain that this only happened due to the man's severely weakened immune system from his HIV condition.
