Parasitology

Making the case to clients.

Getting your team involved is an important step in educating clients about parasites. Closing your doors for a few hours might be the best way to initiate this training.

The promise of genetic testing to detect infection.

Shawnee Mission, Kan.? Bayer Animal Health readies for a March release of Advantage® II for cats and dogs, and K9 Advantix® II for dogs.

A veterinary report emphasizes the zoonoses risks for pet owners who welcome their dogs and cats into their own beds.

A group of experts recently gathered during the 5th Annual Canine Vector-Borne Disease (CVBD) World Forum Symposium for this roundtable discussion. The purpose of the discussion was to provide practicing veterinarians with current relevant information on canine vector-borne diseases in North America and to offer advice on the identification and prevention of these diseases.

Do signalment and geography play a role?

The way team members talk to clients has a lot to do with whether pets will suffer from fleas, ticks, heartworms, and other parasites.

Can one rapid test dependably identify four infectious parasites?

The American Heartworm Society (AHS) recently started collecting data from veterinarians for a national heartworm incidence survey.

Dr. Michael Paul discusses the joint statement, prompted by concerns of veterinary parasitologists and clinicians over regional reports of lack of efficacy of macrocyclic lactones used to prevent heartworm infection in animals.

Heartworm is now a reportable condition in the state of Washington.

National Report - Studies are in the works to determine the scope of heartworm resistance and are expected to be unveiled to the veterinary market in the next six months.

Revisiting this intracellular parasite of dogs and humans may be a good idea.

What is unique about this infectious agent.

A veterinarian explains what to watch for in cats and dogs with bartonellosis.

Bartonellosis is usually transmitted by cat scratches and bites contaminated with flea feces. Learn more about the animals that host and pass on the Bartonella bacteria.

Veterinary team members, you're at risk for the disease simply because you work with animals. But how much do you really know about bartonellosis?

Bartonella species, their animal hosts, and potential vectors are being identified at a snowballing rate. Learn the risk this poses to you and your patients.

Lack of efficacy to heartworm preventives remain geographically limited.

Associations speak out on heartworm preventives. Read what they say about efficacy issues and staying the course.

The factors favorable to the agent responsible for cat scratch disease.

Giardia, cryptosporidia, and tritrichomonas.

Sandfly vectors (not in US) transmit flagellated parasites into the skin of a host, where it often localizes in the cat. In dogs, there is invariably spread of the parasite throughout the body to most organs, although renal failure is the most common cause of death.

Parasites are minor cause of nasal disease in dogs and cats. However, they should be added to a differential diagnosis list of nasal disease. This review will discuss the biology, diagnosis, disease, and treatment of these parasites, and discuss the differential diagnosis, and the methodology for treating at least one differential diagnosis, that of nasal aspergillosis in dogs and cats.

Tick-borne diseases of dogs and cats causing vasculitis leading to multisystemic dysfunction often characterized by thrombocytopenia and hyperglobulinemia.

Protozoal disease (genus: Babesia) of dogs and cats where merozoites (piroplasms) infect RBCs.

Parasites are major causes of respiratory tract disease in the dog and cat. Recent advances in therapy of these diseases have been made providing the practicing veterinarian with a more rational treatment modality. This review will discuss the biology, diagnosis, disease, and treatment of respiratory parasites (protozoan, nematode, trematode, and arthropods) of the dog and cat emphasizing chemotherapeutics.

Infection occurs when infected feces of a vector (Triatomin?, commonly called kissing or assassin bugs) are deposited in a wound (bite site of vector) or mucous membrane, or when a dog eats an infected vector (shown to occur in opossums and raccoons). Raccoons fed infected meat do not get infected so dogs probably not infected by eating meat from intermediate hosts in which the organism is sequestered in muscle. Transmission by contaminated blood transfusion also occurs.

National report - Discussions are ongoing regarding a consensus statement in the works regarding heartworm efficacy.