Anything For Animals

posted by admin on Jul 18

Heartworm And Heartworm Symptoms.

The heart-worm (Dirofilaria immitis) does not usually occur in the UK but is commonly found in dogs from warmer climates including the US. Cats in the UK are hardly ever found to have these worms, and even in the US it is rare for this species.

The adult worms live in the dog or cats heart as their name suggests, but these then produce immature larvae (microfilariae) which are dispersed into the hosts blood.

Most healthy animals can tolerate a certain amount of heart-worms, but treatment is the best option as they can start to block the action of the heart when their numbers increase, causing coughing to start, but also can induce fainting after exercise and eventually heart failure and death as a result.

How They Reproduce:
Heart-worm larvae are transmitted to new hosts via mosquitoes. Basically the mosquito sucks up the microfilariae when feeding off of an infected dog or cat, then when it next feeds it passes some of these into the skin of it’s next meal. Once inside their next dog or cat host they migrate to the heart and can become adults.

Due to this insect-transmission, the worms are only really passed onto new hosts during the peak seasons for the mosquitoes to be feeding - so in colder months this doesn’t spread. It is also the reason why it is not normally found in the UK as the mosquito involved is hardly ever found there to pass this worm around.

This is why heart-worm prevalence in Ohio and Florida, for example, can be so different - it all depends on the mosquito to act as intermediate host, which ultimately depends on the weather.

Obviously using insect repellents on your pets can help to reduce transmission rates, but continuous treatment is the best course of action - as testing first then treatment could cost more than just routine wormers alone.

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