Hydatid Disease Increasing

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 897, 12 October 1956, Page 22

Hydatid Disease Increasing

This is the text of a talk on health broadcast recently from ZB, YA and

YZ stations of the NZBS

by DR

H. B.

TURBOTT

Deputy-Director-

General of Health

HERE is a disease in our country shared by young animals and young children, which shows up later in both -when animals are full grown and killed, and when adults, infected as children, are driven to the operating table to get rid of cysts that would kill if not removed. It is hydatid disease. Now we are not getting anywhere in our fight against this disease. In fact, we are going backwards. In humans, hydatid cysts are showing up in mass X-rays, and at least one surgical chest clinic reports a rise in incidence. In animals the position is deteriorating rapidly. Some years back about one sheep in every two was infected. Thirteen million lambs were killed for export last year. Of their livers, only one in every five was free from hydatids, Of the other four, two were heavily, and two lightly, infected. Of course the same amount is being found in lambs killed for local consumption. This explains why you find it so hard to get that succulent and healthful dish, lambs’ fry, from your butcher. Practically 100 per cent of ewe livers are condemned for hydatid disease, 60 per cent of all cattle livers, 20 per cent of pig livers. Cull cows are as bad as ewes-pretty well all infected. Now all these useless livers could have earned us overseas funds, for there is a steady market for them. In round figures we are now suffering a loss of overseas exchange to the tune of £144 million annually because of hydatid cysts in livers. Unfor-

tunately, nhuman beings can also develop these hydatid cysts. Doctors do not always notify their cases so the recorded figures are too low. We know, from various sources, that between 10 and 20 people die, and from 150 to 200 new cases happen, in each year. At the moment there is "build-up" of. infection on our farms. This means that farm children will

be picking up more infection, too, but. the human being grows slower than animals, so that the rise in incidence will not be apparent for some yearsalthough one surgical clinic already thinks it sees more cases than formerly. Hydatids is a disease that stems from a parasitic worm in the dog. The dog harbours the worm in its gut. The worm makes thousands of hard-shelled eggs that drop on the farm in the dog’s wastes. They withstand drying, sunshine, and wetting, and blow all over the farm, and over the farm kitchen garden. The cattle, sheep and pigs eat the eggs with the grass. Human beings eat these eggs with vegetables if these are not washed well before being eaten raw on the farm. So do children (and others-but more often children) eat these eggs if they forget to wash their hands carefully after fondling dogs and before eating. In the human being, as in animals, the eggs hatch in the gut into embryos, which dig through the gut wall into blood vessels to be carried to the liver. Here the embryos usually get caught and develop

into cysts, Sometimes they pass on to lungs or brain or other organs. If growing in a vital organ, they kill a human unless removed surgically. Inside the cysts new worm heads develop, When an infected animal is killed and the pluck thrown to the dogs, the dogs eat the cysts, of course, and in the dog’s gut the worm head fixes itself and grows into a new worm. When an animal dies on the farm, if unburied, the dogs eat the pluck, and re-infect themselves this way also. Leaving dead sheep or animals to rot in fields, swamps, or creeks is reprehensible. It is one way of keeping hydatid disease going. The other way to build up infection on the farm is to keep on throwing the pluck to the dogs for food, without first boiling it. If not wanted for food the pluck should be burnt or buried. To clear the farm of infection the hydatid tapeworms must be removed from the dog, When licensing your dogs a supply of arecoline pills is given with the licence. If properly used these remove the hydatid worms. The purged material has to be well buried, for the drug re-

be see ll moves but doesn’t kill the worms. For the same reason, all purged material has to be washed from the dog and the hands thoroughly cleaned in an antiseptic wash afterwards. The working dog is the carrier of infection, and the key to prevention. Dose him to get rid of infection, and prevent re-infection, by burying, or boiling the pluck, after killing on the farm.