![]() Gilleard and Ray M.Kaplan, 2 September 2021, International Journal for Parasitology: Drugs and Drug Resistance.Ĭo-authors on this study include Abigail Malatesta, a veterinary student from Tuskegee University, Hannah Huff, currently a veterinary student at the University of Georgia, and researchers from the University of Calgary in Canada.No one likes to hear that their pet could-and probably will-get an intestinal parasite at some point during her life. Zuluaga Salazar, Russell Avramenko, John S. Jimenez Castro,Ībhinaya Venkatesan, Elizabeth Redman, Rebecca Chen, Abigail Malatesta, Hannah Huff, Daniel A. Reference: “Multiple drug resistance in hookworms infecting greyhound dogs in the USA” by Pablo D. But use of this cat drug on dogs should only be performed by a veterinarian, as it requires veterinary expertise and supervision.īased in part on Castro’s work, the American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists recently formed a national task force to address the issue of drug resistance in canine hookworms. Kaplan and Pablo Jimenez Castro, lead author of the study and a recent doctoral graduate from Kaplan’s lab, found in another recent study that these multiple-drug resistant dog hookworms do appear to be susceptible to emodepside, a dewormer currently only approved for use in cats in the U.S. “Unfortunately, that’s not going to work against these drug-resistant hookworms,” Kaplan said. Previously, doctors would treat patients with an ointment that contains a dewormer along with a corticosteroid. As the number of drug-resistant worms grows, they’ll also pose a risk to humans. The infection doesn’t manifest in the same way in people, but after the worms penetrate the skin, they cause a red, very itchy rash as they travel under the skin. If that’s not scary enough, dog hookworms can also infect humans. And female dogs can pass the parasite on to their puppies through their milk. Hookworm larvae live in the soil and can also burrow through the dog’s skin and paws. Until new types of drugs are available, taking your dog to a dog park has to be considered a risky activity.” The consequencesĭogs don’t have to ingest the worms to become infected. “If your dog picks up these resistant hookworms, it’s not as easy as just treating them with medication anymore. “Personally, I would not take my dog to a dog park,” Kaplan said. One possible breeding ground for a potential drug-resistant hookworm outbreak is also the place many dog owners use to exercise their animals: dog parks. Hookworms get their name from their hook-shaped mouths shown here under a microscope. But as those dogs are adopted, the drug-resistant hookworms are going to show up in other pet dogs.” “There’s a very committed greyhound adoption industry because they are lovely dogs,” said Kaplan. Although a molecular test does not yet exist to test for the resistance to the other two types of drugs, other types of testing by the team showed that the hookworms were resistant to those drugs as well. The researchers found that almost all the fecal samples tested positive for the mutation that enables hookworms to survive treatment with benzimidazoles, a broad-spectrum class of dewormers used in both animals and humans. Ray Kaplan, professor of veterinary parasitology If your dog picks up these resistant hookworms, it’s not as easy as just treating them with medication anymore.” “Personally, I would not take my dog to a dog park. With repeated treatments over time, most of the drug-susceptible worms at the farm or kennel will be killed, and the resistant worms will then predominate.Ĭompounding the problem, veterinarians don’t typically test animals after treatment to ensure the worms are gone, so the drug-resistant worms go unnoticed until the dog has a heavy infection and starts showing signs of hookworm disease. If dewormers are applied frequently, the newly emerging resistant worms will survive and pass on the mutation that helped them sneak past the drug to their offspring. In situations where there are a lot of dogs infected with a lot of parasites, such as on racing dog breeding farms and kennels, there are many more opportunities for parasites to develop rare mutations allowing them to survive the dewormer treatments. The study marks the first demonstration of widespread multiple-drug resistance in a dog parasite reported in the world. Hookworms can sometimes “hide” in tissues, where they won’t reproduce and shed eggs until the infection worsens and leaks into the dog’s intestines.īut perhaps more alarming, the team saw that the dogs still had high levels of infection with hookworms even after they were treated for them. Hookworms are visible within the intestine of a deceased puppy.
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