FIGHT AGAINST HYDATIDS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27860, 7 January 1956, Page 7

FIGHT AGAINST HYDATIDS

SCHEME IN PROGRESS AT KAIKOURA VISITS TO ALL FARMS A campaign to reduce the incidence of hydatid disease has been launched in the Kaikoura district. If it proves successful, it will be an example to other districts of how the problem may be approached. Giving details of the Kaikoura scheme this week, Mr A. G. Brash, a veterinarian with the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, said that in the past a number of campaigns for reducing the incidence of the disease had been initiated in districts throughout the country, but in the main these had achieved only limited success. There was, he said, a danger of the disease being regarded as “one of those things we cannot do much about, but should we be prepared to go on accepting that in the average year about 50 fresh cases will be notified, 130 people will be treated in hospital and 15 of them will die?” he asked.

In the Kaikoura district, an enthusiastic start had been made, said Mr Brash. A special committee, known as the Kaikoura Hydatid Prevention Committee, had bebn set up. The idea was that this committee should get the scheme started, demonstrate that it could work, and later hand it over to the local county council for administration. The area involved in the Kaikoura project is the Kaikoura county, in which it is estimated that there are nearly 1000 dogs. The Kaikoura scheme incorporates something which those who are in--terested in hydatid eradication have long regarded as absolutely essential to a successful campaign. It is that all farms in the area are being visited and all dogs on the farms are being dosed by an expert. In this way the farmer was shown that dosing was not difficult, said Mr Brash, and that it was not harmful to the dogs. It alsd meant that contact was made with the farmer who did not come out to meetings or field days. While on the farm the officers doing the dosing could explain all aspects of hydatid control, including the proper disposal of offal and dead sheep and care of dogs. The dosing is being dofie by livestock instructors of the animal industry division, which is “right behind the scheme.” The local instructor in the district has the assistance of the instructor from Blenheim who has had experience of dosing thousands of dogs in an experimental area in the Styx district of Central Otago. System of Attack The Kaikoura county has been subdivided into four areas for the purposes of the campaign and a dog week is being held every three months. During the first of these weeks, all the farms in one of these four areas were visited and all the dogs dosed. In the second dog week, held three months later, all the farms in the second area were visited, and at the same time notices were sent out to all farmers in the first area advising them that it was time to dose their dogs again. Three months later there was another dog week, all farms in the third area were visited and notices sent to dog owners in the two areas already visited reminding them of the need to re-dose. The final area will be visited next month.

The committee recognises that a weakness of the scheme is that ail farms are not being visited every three months, and they intend to remedy tnis as soorf as finances permit by the employment of a man to do the dosing. Already £3OO has been raised from two rodeos and a dog trial field day. During the first round of visits a survey. is being made of the exact number of dogs in the area, the time taken to perform the dosing and mileage travelled. As a result, an exact estimate of the cost of continuing the scheme will be made. At one stage the idea of collecting dogs at central points in each area for dosing was considered. but it was abandoned because it was not thought to be satisfactory. So far the scheme has been entirely voluntary, and Mr Brash says that it has had the full co-operation of practically all farmers in the district. An interesting example of the kind of enthusiasm that farmers are showing for the project was related by Mi' Brash. In the Conway Flat-Claver-ley district, where there are 16 farms, the farmers have agreed to prepare a roster and appoint two of their number to go round the farms in the area each dog week to ensure 4hat their neighbours are not falling down on the job. “No doubt t|iis will be largely a social call and will do a lot of good apart from helping to clean up hydatids,” remarked Mr Brash. Use of Tablets Here are some of the things that livestock officers have found on their visits to farms. Surprisingly enough, some farmers do not know the whole story of the life cycle of hydatids, and the officers take this opportunity to enlighten them. They found, too, that some farmers had never dosed their dogs with the arecoline tablets issued when dogs are registered. One of the main reasons given for this was that they had heard that arecoline was harmful to the dog. The fact that 570 dogs in the district have now been dosed without ill effects to any of them should help to dispel this erroneous belief. Those that regularly dosed their dogs took the opposite view, said Mr Brash. They believed that their dogs had thrived better after dosing. It was found that the common method used by farmers dosing their dogs was to administer the tablets concealed in a piece of meat or fat. This is not recommended by the experts. Quite apart from the fact that it is a haphazard way of doing the job, arecoline in tablet form is slower in action and less effective than when dissolved in a small amount of water.

The instructors have shown that it is not difficult to give a liquid dose if the dog iS helped properly. The tablets dissolve easily if crushed with a piece of wire in a small bottle or metal tube.

Very few farms have any means of dealing with offal from slaughtered sheep. All that is required is a rack, out of the .dog’s reach, on to which the material can be thrown, or. better still, some arrangement for boiling it so that it can be fed to the dogs with safety. Disposal of dead sheep needed more attention on most farms, said Mr Brash. The extra trouble was well worth while if it would prevent dogs becoming a menace to human health. Discussing the prospects for the Kaikoura scheme, Mr Brash said that farmers who were apathetic about hydatid control should remember that it was in their own interest, because it was their own health and that of their familes that was being protected.