Definitions

There are numerous parasitic worms which may cohabit within a same body.
Are distinguished:

• In Nematods or round worms:
  • Ascaris: White and round worms, a bit like spaghettis, being 6 to 20 cm long in average. They are common and dangerous.
  • Trichuris: They are small: from 4 to 8 mm.
  • Ankylostomas: They have an analogous shape but are tiny small: from 1 to 2 mm.
  • etc...
  All hatch eggs, by billions, which are found in droppings and vomit.
   
• In Cestods or flat worms:
  • Tenias: Worms from few millimeters to several meters. They look like a kind of white soft string, breaking easily and beeing gradually thicker backward : Their tinyest part is their head. In fact the worm is only made with a string of eggs bags the size of which growing with their maturation. These eggs bags are mobile, able to move during few minutes after their expulsion from the parasited body and have a size similar to a rice grath. The head is tiny, hanging in the intestine recesses and even if the "body" is withdrawed from the host, (by vermifuges). There is to known if the head came, otherwise all is to be started over again.
  • etc...

Hosts

Parasitic worms are as old as the world, they have infiltrated all living beings.
Of couse, species parasiting plants, insects, fishes, etc... are not the same.

Besides, for a same host specie, it may be found dozen of different parasites, and a same may infiltrate several host species (by example, the Taenia saginata may be exchanged among dogs and humans).

More, some of them are transmitted from mother to children, in utero (= through the placenta, before the birth) or/and through mother's milk.

It is thus very important for all TO TREAT correctly its animals and to have CLEAN habits and personnal environment.

Contamination

The most efficient method that these parasites found to contaminate their hosts is to lay billions of tiny eggs which are evacuated at the end of digestion. These eggs are, furthermore, extremely resistants to external conditions and know how to wait years, keeping safe all their powers to contaminate a fitting target.

As they are tiny, a touch is enough to stick it on anywhere: hands, feet, paws, mouth, chops, ... Their entry in the body is easy.

From there the necessity to be as clean as possible.

Of course, to eat directly a badly coocked meat, comming from an ill animal is the most prestigious contamination route: It avoids thm the hazardous phasis of the outside stage.

The danger is thus enormous when eating a meat not rigorously sanitary controlled. This allows to understand why non treated animals are all contaminated.

Remember this scientific survey loosen in the Far North up to that all members died out because of a parasitic worm (Trichuris), because they weren't able to cook the meat of the white bear that they killed to try to survive.

Once again,

parasitic worms have conquered THE WHOLE EARTH since the mists of time: This story may happen anywhere.

Treatment

The threat has been taken seriously in account since the beginings of medicine.
There are numerous preventive drugs today: Vermifuges.
As the number of these parasitic worms is high, molecules allowing to kill it are different and numerous.

There are vermifuges against a special worm, others having a wider spectrum (= wider range), killing several species.
As all hosts neither have the same size, nor the same physiology, for each host specie prescribed drugs neither have the same composition, nor the same posology (=dosage and frequency tackings).

• Humans:
  • CONSULT A PRACTICIAN WITHOUT FURTHER ADO!
• Dogs, cats and others:

  There is to do DEWORMINGS, dewormings, dewormings, the most assiduously possible:

  • Pragnant females:
    • Few days before mating (if wanted, of course),
    • 15 days before births,
    • 15 days after.
  • Babies:
    • NEVER during the two first weeks (the vermifuge may kill),
    • During the first months: every 15 days,
    • then, until maturity (according to the specie, a dog is not a cat): each month.
  • Adults:
    • At least twice a year, the best being each three months.
      Good vermifuge and good periods will be given to you by your veterinarian.
    
    WARNING:
    • Vermifuge 15 days BEFORE you vaccinate: Vaccines may be inactivated by worms!
    • Treat against fleas: They also have worms and may transmit some (while swallowed during licks)!

Prevention

• Dogs, cats and other animals:
  • Think about it each time when:
    • A Pet seems to endure itchings on the bottom (ascaris, but not only),
    • A Pet vomits or have bloody diarrheas,
    • You find "moving rice graths" (Tenia), furthermore near the anus or at the place where the Pet was lying just before.
  • Do not tolerate fleas or ticks,
  • Wash any animal who is dirty with excrements,
  • In flats, change the cat litter at least each day.
• Humans:
  1. NEVER eat a meat with a quality not rigorously controled.
  2. Prefer well cooked meat rather than raw meat.
  3. Have a rigorous hygiene:
     • Wash your hands after having touch an animal (furthermore if suspect!),
     • Wash your hands before eating (it will never be told enough),
     • Wash salad, fruits, etc. ,
     • Have clean dresses,
     • Wash and change yourself, wash dresses and shoes when returning from the site, the forest, any outside activity (Warning: Don't let dirty waters going to the yard, or around the house!)
     • Do not tolerate fleas or ticks, either on an animal, or in homes,
     • Don't let childrens playing with earth, dirty plates,
     • Destroy the viscera of animals bought in one piece or hunted (goats, pigs, cows, chickens, etc.),
       Do not give it to the dog or cat, and, more, do not let children playing with!
     • etc...
  
  ... In brief, watch over all ways by which eggs may reach you, yours and your Pets.