Wakanui Hydatid Scheme Will Be Wound Up

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29718, 11 January 1962, Page 11

Wakanui Hydatid Scheme Will Be Wound Up

After four years, the Wakanui Hydatid Pilot scheme, which was the first reaf effort 10 yontam hydatids in dogs in Canterbury, will be wound up. This was decided at a meeting of . the Ashburton meat and wool section of Mid-Canterbury Federated Farmers and Ashburton Veterinary Club representatives, held recently. Mr F. W. Beckett, of the veterinary club, who supervised the scheme from its beginning in 1958, has been appointed senior veterinarian to the Bush and South Hawke’s Bay club at 'Dannevirk. This is partly the reason for the scheme’s closure.

Begun in 1958 two years before the Ashburton County’s hydatids scheme as a joint effort of Federated Farmers and the veterinary club, the scheme was an attempt to control hydatid and other tapeworms in dogs and assess what improvements could be made in the incidence of white spot in lamb’s l.vers. A programme, worked out by Mr M. Gemmell of the Otago Medical School hydatids research unit, was adopted. Fifty-five farmers in the Wakanui district came under the scheme, involving about 130 dogs.

In 1960, when the county's scheme was brought into practice, the scheme was incorporated in the county’s. At the beginning, 7.5 per cent, of the dogs in the Wakanui scheme were infected with true hydatids and 33 per cent, were infected with false hydatids. The position improved considerably over the years and in 1960 only one dog was found to be infected with true hydatids. Two dogs from one property were infected in 1961. During the four years, the incidence of false hydatids has varied between 1.6 and 4.5 per cent. “Although it has not been possible to eradicate tape-

worms completely in dogs in the area it has been a considerable achievement," said Mr Beckett, yesterday. “However, it does give some indication of the stringent precautions required to be taken by farmers with offal and carcase disposal to achieve complete eradication. "Examination of lamb’s livers at slaughter showed considerable variation from property to property,” he said. “Properties which had no infected dogs for two years had over 90 per cent, clean livers." It was his opinion that the results achieved early in the campaign materially assisted the early establishment of the county scheme.