Here’s a question I get surprisingly often.
I found a dead raccoon (or raccoon poop) in my pool and I’m freaking out about raccoon roundworms. What should I do?
The raccoon roundworm, Baylisascaris procyonis, is certainly a parasite of concern, but it’s also one that often leads to over-reaction and panic. While it can
I get a surprising number of emails from people concerned about Baylisascaris procyonis, the raccoon roundworm. Some are just a bit concerned while others are almost paralyzed by fear at the thought of this parasite lurking in the environment. Most of my responses are largely re-assuring people that the risk is very limited
Imagine you’re a vet doing an exploratory abdominal surgery in a dog. You’re poking around in the belly and feel something abnormal. You grab it and as you pull it out of the abdomen to have a look, you see it’s a red tubular structure. As you continue to pull (and pull, and pull), it
A few times a week, I get questions like this from veterinarians:
Or I get
Around here, infection in dogs caused by Leishmania infantum typically comes up in the context of imported dogs, particularly those from countries around the Mediterranean (e.g. Greece, Israel, Spain). This parasite is usually transmitted between a variety of mammalian species, including dogs and humans, by certain species of sandflies. We’re quite lucky here in Ontario
Last spring, we posted about a report of alveolar echinococcosis (AE) in a child in Quebec from 2018. This very serious parasitic infection is caused by the intermediate stage of the fox tapeworm, Echinococcus multilocularis (EM), which despite its common name is often also found in coyotes (including right here in southern Ontario
People sometimes get frustrated when I won’t say “absolutely, positively that cannot happen.” It’s not that I don’t understand or am afraid to make a decision, it’s biology. I can say something is “exceedingly unlikely to happen,” “not something I’d be concerned about” or
“there’s no evidence that’s a concern
As the Asian Longhorned tick (Haemophysalis longicornis) continues to spread in the US, we wait for it to make an appearance in Canada. This “exotic tick” was introduced to the US from Asia possibly a while ago, but was only first detected in 2017 in New Jersey. It has since clearly established itself
In a presentation yesterday at the 2019 ACVIM Forum in Phoenix AZ, Dr. Ray Kaplan from the University of Georgia gave a somewhat scary talk about the emergence of multidrug-resistance in the hookworm Ancylostoma caninum.
Resistant parasites don’t tend to get as much attention as resistant bacteria, but they can present similar challenges.
Nothing has changed about Echinococcus multilocularis (the fox tapeworm) in the past couple of months, but my phone is ringing off the hook following another round of media reports about this parasite. Here’s a recap of the issues:
