Mary Allen
Most dogs get worms one or more times in their lives. In exceptional cases, however, the fox’s dwarf tapeworm and common roundworm can also infect humans. So take the safe before the unsafe and handle the dog’s deworming properly.
Ordinary roundworm is something that most dog owners know, but not as many people know that we humans can also become infected. It is not certain for sure how often the roundworm infects humans, but studies have shown that humans have developed antibodies against roundworms – which means that they have met them before.
A flushing machine infection in people with weakened immune systems, young children, or the elderly can cause many problems, not least because the flushing worm in its hunt for the dog’s intestine often “gets lost” in the human body. An unfortunate place that the worm often finds is the human eye.
Another worm that in rare cases can infect humans is the fox’s dwarf tapeworm. Because the dwarf tapeworm does not “belong” in humans, the consequences can be unfortunate.
Incurable Infection
The dwarf tapeworm develops from a larva in small rodents and then on to the worm in the animal that eats the rodent, for example, a fox or a dog. Humans can be infected by eggs from infected foxes or dog feces. But since there is no predator that eats humans, the larvae remain inside the infected human. Instead of settling in the intestinal system, it can form cysts in the liver that can become very large and can lead to impaired liver function. If not detected in time, they can spread to more organs in the body and, in the worst case, be fatal.
First, Find in 2011
The first find of a fox in Sweden was made in 2011 and since then some more have been discovered. If you have dogs in the areas where the infection is, you can consider whether you should not deworm your dogs a little more often. And if you are unsure, you can also wash your dog a little more often, especially if you know that it may have been out and rolled in feces in the woods.
How to Avoid Worm Infection
Every 20th adult dog is dishwasher infected, so do not forget to deworm your dog at regular intervals.
Deworming can also be recommended if you live or stay in areas where fox dwarf tapeworms have been found, and especially if you have dogs that run free in the forest.
Dogs that go to dog daycare and spend time with many other dogs are also at increased risk of becoming infected.
Hunting dogs used for digging should also be washed after each hunt, to avoid infection from the fur.
Choose a dewormer that has a targeted treatment and attacks the worms directly in the dog’s gut.
Some preparations treat the whole body and then require a longer time to leave the body. If your dog should react to the treatment, it is of course good if the preparation leaves the body as quickly as possible.