The Aesthetics of a Female Hunter™ : Public Health Awareness: A Fox Parasite.

Remember This: Parasites are like computer hackers. They get in, get what they want and really work you over before they are done. Some you can treat; others stay like family come to visit that don't know how to leave.

After roaming the woods, working in an animal hospital and the extreme sport of getting myself into trouble, my doctor is treating me now with medication directed at would be interlopers into my system. I wondered after years of beating my head into the brick wall of medicine, given my previous animal related history, no one listened? Finally, someone did and he's a pretty smart MD. I bring this up to merely remind you not to scare you.

I got to thinking, as a stab at public awareness for all those that hunt, to spotlight a nasty bugger.

Enter Echinoccoccs multilocularis.

Personal story #1:

Two different clients came to the office I was employed at. The first client exhibited a sickly cat. Out of it fell this thick fleshed, white tightly segmented parasite. For all intents and purposes, looked like a monster tapeworm. It was placed in a red-topped blood tube with formalin and placed in the refrigerator. At this time, the veterinarian who saw this in the litter pan, stepped back and looked like he had smelled the worst pile of manure ever dropped out an animal. "That is a fox tapeworm." By his actions, I determined this was like nuclear waste. A massive cleaning in the spirit of OCD proportions was carried out by staff. We didn't want that parasite. Said parasite was shipped off to the State laboratory for testing and confirmed as a fox parasite.

Second client came in with a dog and a stool sample in a clear plastic bag with a UFO (unidentified fecal object). The same reaction followed of intensive cleaning. We were happy that both animals did not get a chance to defecate on our lawn, thereby transmitting this little gremlin.

Hopefully no one got infected through cross contamination.

I got to thinking about all the times I have seen people dressing out animals. Some rupture the gut through misplaced shots, the dogs ripping the animal (fox) open, or pick through a carcass, found dead or scraped off the road for that night's dinner. Let's face it, there are people with morbid curiosity and ghoulish ways when crossing the path of a situation where they may not get the chance again, will poke around into the unknown, contrary to personal harm. We all do it. Reminded me of Chunk of Goonies fame when he yells to Mikey, "Dead things, Mikey. Dead things!"

These same hunters/huntresses will half-heartedly wipe their faces while dressing out to scratch an unconscious itch, remove sweat, or finger around in the body cavity. This unconscious action moves closer and closer to the eyes and the mouth, which are oral entry ways for parasites and disease. I don't even want to go there thinking about bloody fingers and someone eating uncooked meat, safe or not. It's human nature, I guess.

On the other hand, lets consider those hunters that keep scat collections. Hopefully, you had someone put that literal crap in a autoclave after it petrified to kill whatever was in it or at least a plastic container lined with 60 cc syringes and filled minutely with Formalin and closed for several days. (Trust me on this. Make sure you get someone to test a sample to see if you left it in long enough.)
Otherwise every time you handle the scat you are at risk, if you're not already repeatedly infecting yourself.

If the Fox defecates on the ground, then a wild boar comes rooting through, there you go: up the ole pie hole. Now the wild boar has it. At another time and incident, you could have a person walking through the woods eating off the land: berries, dandelions, and root tubers. Oooops. Infestation. On another occasion, you could have a family pet playing with their food and eating a rat. Gotcha again, then the cat uses the litter pan, which you clean. I can't recall Haz-mat suits being sold at Wal-mart because a lot of time the OB-GYN will only tell you about Trichomonas possibly infecting pregnant women. Another scenario is the hunter picking up scat for closer inspection while saying, "It looks like fox crap to me."

Think of all the ways this could come visit you at your door.

Personal Story #2:

Had a co-worker come down sick at the animal hospital. We will call her June. June went to her doctor only to find that she had this case of Pseudomonas which had lodged itself in her sinus.

June was a poor example of washing her hands and she was always snotting and wiping her nose. After coming back from her doctor with a confirmation, she thought to test all her animals. She had 3-4 horses, ~5 dogs, and a house cat. All of them were positive. All were administered a medicinal regime including Old June. June couldn't take time off because of the demands of her boss and job. She had to come to work sick, potentially infecting us all, and wearing a Picc line, which is a peripheral inserted central catheter that fed her medicine. It was like someone walking around pushing an IV pole except she could hide it on her person. This was what I called 'extreme fucking over of your employee'. I hated it for June; her personal problems aside. I was also considering the erroneous attitude the doctor had at bullying June into potentially infecting the other patients, clients, and staff. She touched everything. In the above personal story June was no longer with us.

Personal story 3#:
A well meaning citizen brought in a sick red fox. When I got to work, the other worker applied an intravenous catherter while medicating and giving fluids to this sick fox. I walked in and thought, "Oh Shit. Tapeworms/rabies? Take your pick." The doctor finally showed up and found out about the fox. He directed them to euthanize it. While declaring stupidity among those few that had done such works, the doctor himself did not feel the need to have the head tested by DHEC, which is done at no cost as a public service. This service caters to any animal found to be suspicous of carrying the Rabies disease.

Here I report, Veterinary medicine is filled with true professionals, given the quality of the practice. Which at times is not perfect, but then there are places that make you question the belief in God, the Anti-Christ and the fact someone in Psychology missed their calling to study the mentality of people working in this particular field.

Here you have two incidences, where you could have contamination or infestation. Think about it.This is just examples that can happen at a job. Imagine if you are at leisure.

My understanding it is worse in Europe but researchers cry foul with lack of money, so who knows for sure at any given place just how prevalent things are.

As an example I jumped in the Scientific Time Machine and visited a poster presentation written in 2008 entitled, Wild life surveillance on Echinococcus multilocularis in Sweden written by Birgitta Andersson, Bodil Christensson, Susanne Johasson, Eva O Lind, and Göran Zakrisson.
Here is the link:
www.actavetscand.com/content/pdf/1751-0147-52-S1-S10.pdf

There are several good examples of information here:
http://www.actavetscand.com/search/results?terms=Echinococcus%20multilocularis

Here this poster is saying the Swedish government is paying for investigations into the existance of this parasite.

The facts:

2007

245 red foxes shot by local hunters from different parts of Sweden. (Potential contamination/infestation). These harvests are not done in a localized area.

Carcasses are placed in -80 degrees Celsius/week before sampling using coproantigen ELISA testing.

48 positive Fox and 28 additional specimens randonly selected were examined by sedimentation technique.

Results:

48 Foxes out of 245 were positive for Echinococcus sp. by the coproantigen Elisa.

The Sedimentation technique was negative. (Using both positive and randomly selected individuals).

When ever a sedimentation procedure was done in our office we, used free feces. Older feces is not embraced because parasites have an odd way of migrating into soil around the area where the feces is deposited. You could think of dropping a stone in water. Once the stone hits the water there is an outerward wake. This wake is equal to the migration of parasites larvae from the feces. That could go for some distance and it's hard to kill them even with burning, depending on what parasite, nematode, or X factor you have.

When I was reading this, I saw where the sedimentation was not positive. That might have something to do with treatment of the carcass. What is in the bowel may die versus the samples needed for the ELISA, which is two different procedural tests. Sedimentation studies also depend on solute to solution percents and if they are mixed properly or you would have non-flotation or rupture of the eggs.

At this point, you can agree, always be careful with what you are handling.

Ways to avoid:

Research and Read. Libraries give out library cards at low rates with free computer access.
Don't touch it. Cat's only have nine lives. You may not be a cat.
Learn how to wash your hands like a professional.
Get a professional to remove the carcass for testing or removal.
In the South, people would put gas on it and strike a match to watch the pretty colors of the flames.
Wash all your fruit, vegetables, and berries.
Don't eat and browse in the woods because it looks clean and uninfested. Your eyes are not electron microsopes or even 50X microscopes. Birds poop from the sky all the time; a statue can vouch for that.
Buy surgical gloves or dish washing gloves. Use these when cleaning litter pans, dog poop, or gardening. (I have known clients to wash their cat pan right in their house sink and put the cat pan on the counter where their dinner is displayed. I can confirm: I don't eat anything they cook or stay long.)
Take your prized pet/hunting dog to the Veterinarian for a yearly, semi-yearly check, vaccinations, diagnostic tests, and deworming/treatment.
Go to the doctor when you show signs or feel you may have picked up a parasite. Don't wait for it to breed in your entrails like the Alien baby, to burst out your chest or float by in your eyeball juices (i. e. loa loa).
Educate yourself.