Be Worm Aware

Kim and Aggie say 'Ban Big Wigglies!' in your pets.

The nation's favourite cleaning ladies, Aggie MacKenzie and Kim Woodburn, are encouraging pet owners to keep their dogs and cats spick and span, inside and out. Their efforts are part of a 12 month nationwide awareness campaign to help dog and cat lovers clean up their act.

Dogs and cats can get unpleasant wiggly worms, called Toxocara, in their gut and the eggs they produce can infect people, especially the under 5s. These worm eggs can also stick on a dog's coat and veterinary experts have suggested that monthly worming against Toxocara is the best way forward.

The 'Queens of Clean' are encouraging all dogs and cat owners to pop along to their veterinary surgery to discuss a suitable worming programme for their pet where they can expect to receive plenty of advice and support on all aspects of Toxocara and flea control.

"We are backing the 'Big Wiggly' campaign to focus public attention on the importance of pet hygiene," say Aggie and Kim. "Owning a dog or cat is the most fantastically rewarding experience but keeping them healthy and worm free is all part of the relationship."

Just one gram of cat or dog faeces could contain 10,000 Toxocara worm eggs. The eggs produced by the worm are passed out in the pet's stools and they can lurk around in the soil for about 2 years, long after the stools have rotted away, or been scooped up. A Toxocara egg is less than 1/10th of a millimetre long, so invisible to the naked eye. The microscopic eggs are sticky and only penetrate into the soil a few centimetres every year.

Toxocara worms present a risk to pets and people. An adult Toxocara worm can be up to 18 centimetres long but you may not even know if your pet has several worms living inside their intestines. Humans are 'paratenic hosts' for Toxocara - consuming an egg is the route of infection, then, because the parasite finds itself in an animal it doesn't normally inhabit, it goes into an arrested phase of development and roves around the body into many different tissues.

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