HYDATIDS IN HUMANS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26441, 7 June 1951, Page 8

HYDATIDS IN HUMANS

METHOD OF INFECTION EXPLAINED “Dogs are infected with hydatids by eating cystic offal, and not by swallowing droppings from other dogs. Humans are affected by swallowing eggs which are passed out in the droppings of dogs, but on the other hand they can eat infected livers without suffering any harm.” This statement was made yesterday by the Medical Officer of Health at Christchurch (Dr. J. H. Blakelock) when a letter to the editor of “The Press” on the control of hydatids was referred to him. The letter, which was signed “Safeguard Your Child,” said that a good percentage of town dogs, as well as country dogs, were infected with hydatids. The writer said that town dogs were readily infected by the droppings of other dogs, and asked whether figures showing the incidence of hydatids in town and country, and among children and adults, could be published. The hydatid worm had two stages in its life history, said Dr. Blakelock, commenting on the letter. The adult worm stage was passed in the intestines of dogs, and it also had a cystic stage which occurred in the bodies of sheep, cattle, and also in some cases in humans. Dogs were infected by eating liver and other matter containing cysts. Humans, sheep, and cattle, in which the cystic stage occurred, were infected by swallowing eggs of the worm which were passed out in the droppings of infected dogs. “By the time hydatid infection in a human comes to notice, it may have been present for years, and therefore the address at which the case is notified is not necessarily of any significance,” said Dr. Blakelock, referring to the writer’s request for statistics. “The infection might have been picked up years earlier, on a visit to the country. There are few people in New Zealand who have not spent some time on a farm or in the couhtry.”