A couple of days ago, I mentioned that Jason Stull and I have done a scoping review of human Baylisascaris procyonis (raccoon roundworm) infections. The paper is published in the Canadian Veterinary Journal, but won’t be open access until October, so I’ll provide a preview of some of the findings here. Here’s a
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
The August edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases has an interesting case report of Baylisascaris procyonis infection in a California man (Langelier et al. 2016). Baylisascaris procyonis, commonly known as the raccoon roundworm, is a parasite that is very commonly found in the intestinal tracts of raccoons. Massive numbers of parasite eggs can
I had a question the other day about roundworms in feral cats. Specifically, how do you deworm a group of cats that you don’t handle and may not be able to catch? There are a few possible approaches, from trapping and treating (oral or topical) to trying to get a dewormer into them via food.
An article by Dr. Ann Britton of British Columbia’s Animal Health Centre (AHC) on the blog site healthywildlife.ca is another reminder of the perils of raccoon poop. Over a 2 year period, 17 raccoons were submitted to the AHC for necropsy, and 12 (71%) of them were infected with Baylisascaris procyonis, the
An article in the May/June edition of Canadian Vet Newsmagazine (a magazine, not to be confused with Canadian Veterinary Journal, a scientific journal), described an interesting case of an indoor pet bird acquiring an infection from a wild raccoon, despite no direct contact.
The bird was an African Grey Parrot that was admitted
An interesting paper in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases (Page et al. 2011) describes an impressively large effort to study the effect of anthelmintic (dewormer) baiting on parasite contamination at raccoon latrines sites in Indiana.
Raccoon latrines can be highly contaminated with various parasites, because raccoons congregate at these sites and use
Recently, I was speaking with a physician who mentioned that a colleague has recommended that people with raccoons in their yard get rid of their dogs because of the risk of Baylisascaris procyonis. This parasite, also known as the raccoon roundworm, can cause severe neurological disease in people that ingest infective parasite eggs from the
There was another paper published in the August issue of the Canadian Veterinary Journal about Baylisascaris procyonis (roundworms) in raccoons, this time in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Sexsmith et al 2009). The study was actually undertaken after infection with B. procyonis larvae was identifed as the cause of death of several animals in
