
However, risk of disease recurrence is high. This drug helps to destroy any remaining tapeworm heads. To reduce this risk, the doctor may prescribe high doses of the drug albendazole in conjunction with surgery. A risk of surgery is that a hydatid cyst may rupture and spread tapeworm heads throughout the patient’s body. Surgery is the main form of treatment for hydatid disease. blood tests for antibodies to the cysts.examination of blood, urine, sputum, faeces or other bodily fluids if a burst hydatid cyst is suspected.Diagnosis of hydatid diseaseĭiagnosis of hydatid disease may include: A heavily infested organ may fail or a cyst may rupture and cause a life-threatening allergic reaction (anaphylaxis). Hydatid disease can be fatal without medical treatment.
jaundice – pressure from an enlarging cyst may cause jaundice. blood or the fluid from a ruptured cyst – may be coughed up. Symptoms can occur a long time after infection, sometimes months or years later. In rare cases, hydatid cysts may form in the thyroid gland or heart or within bone. The kidneys, brain and lungs are sometimes affected. The most commonly affected organ is the liver. The symptoms of hydatid disease depend on which organs are affected. Hydatid disease is not contagious and is not passed by person-to-person contact. This is known as hydatid disease or echinococcosis. #Tape worm tabs cats full#
The eggs travel through the bloodstream, lodge in organs and form watery cysts full of tapeworm heads.
A human acts as an intermediate host in the same way as a sheep, horse or kangaroo. People usually become infected by accidentally swallowing the tapeworm eggs passed in dog faeces. Human infection does not occur from eating infected offal. The eggs have to be swallowed by an animal (intermediate host) to form hydatid cysts. The eggs are highly resistant to weather conditions and can remain viable for months. The eggs are passed from the animal’s body in faeces and may stick to the animal’s hair or contaminate the vegetable garden. This last segment contains immature eggs.
Each mature worm grows and sheds the last segment of its body about every two weeks. Thousands can inhabit the gut of an infected animal. granulosis tapeworm is only six millimetres long. The tapeworms are mature after about six weeks. The swallowed cysts burst and the tapeworm heads travel to the gut and attach themselves to the intestine wall. Infection begins when the animal eats offal that contains hydatid cysts.
Definitive host – such as dogs and dingoes. A mature fertile cyst may contain several million such heads. These cysts contain around 30 to 40 tapeworm heads (the first segment of the tapeworm). These embryos penetrate the wall of the intestine and are carried in the bloodstream to vital organs such as the liver, lungs or brain, where they can develop into watery ‘blisters’ called hydatid cysts. The eggs hatch in the animal’s gut into embryos (called oncospheres). Infection begins when the grazing animal eats dog or dingo faeces infected with tapeworm eggs. Intermediate host – such as sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, horses, camels, wallabies and kangaroos. The tapeworm needs two hosts to complete its life cycle: Infection with tapeworm eggs causes cysts to form in vital organs such as the liver and lungs. granulosis), which can infect dogs and dingoes, particularly in sheep farming areas.Ī person who comes in contact with the faeces of an infected dog (that is, when eggs from the tapeworm are passed in the faeces) may develop hydatid disease. In Australia, the most serious locally acquired form of tapeworm infestation is caused by the hydatid tapeworm ( Echinococcus granulosis or E. Humans can also become infested after close contact with animals like cats and dogs. They can be caused when humans consume raw or undercooked animal products that contain worm larvae (for beef or pork). The term ‘tapeworm’ describes a group of parasitic worms that live in the gut of animals, including humans.