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There is going to be a meeting about rat lung worm (angiostrongylus cantonensis), hopefully with the Dept. of Health present, this Saturday the 10th at 12 noon in Seaview at SPACE. Don#699;t know if anyone saw the Star Bulletin a few days ago, but in an article that was done on the subject, Ms. Park, State epidemiologist, said that there was no test to detect angiostrongylus cantonensis. This is an inaccurate statement. There is a blood antibody (DNA) test that I and several other people I know have had with results that came out positive. So now is a good time to make them realize that it is a real problem for patients when Doctors here largely know nothing about this illness. Hopefully, people like Rob Hollingsworth will make an appearance and discuss research they have done on the subject. And it will be a good time to exchange prevention measures and information.
Please see the prior two threads on this subject (parasites) for more information about the illness.
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i want to go. Where is SPACE ?
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Thanks for putting the word out regarding this meeting.
It will be great if folks who are able to attend would kindly post a summary of that which they learn for the information of neighbors who are off-island at the moment or otherwise unable to attend. (Posting that summary and subsequent discussion in the main thread on parasite prevention may be useful to consolidating useful data on this important, especially for folks in future who use the keyword function to search out the topic from the archives).
I'd particularly like to hear anything said about whether or not there is any solid evidence one way or the other for either rat lungworm larvae or lepto bacteria being passed in the slime trails of slugs and snails, as distinct from via accidentally ingesting the bodies of slugs and snails.
It is perhaps easier to try to wash slugs and snails themselves --including very tiny 'uns, since I gather even very small slugs can still be infective-- out of veggies than to eliminate all traces of invertebrate mucous ("slime trails," especially if dried and hard to detect in the first place), so if there is some suspicion or doubt regarding whether disease may be transmitted via the slime trails then any comments on the efficacy of washing vegetables with various strengths of different types of solutions would also be informative to hear.
Any comments on the usefulness of rodent control measures toward reducing A. cantonensis burden in invertebrates (breaking the parasite's life cycle and reducing overall population via targeting the intended definitive host) would be instructive. Is this a practical control strategy? How far does the rat population need to be knocked back before a dip in invertebrate infectivity could be expected?
There has been at least one report in Puna commenting on rats with abnormal behavior (sick rats) and suggesting these rats might be connected with large snail populations. Good parasites are evolved to get along well with their intended hosts; parasites generally do not make their intended hosts so ill they perish or easily fall prey to predators or accidents. If rats are becoming so ill from these parasites that they are maladaptively staggering about, observably diseased, then this may be an indicator of a change in the pattern, something out of the ordinary or new, in the usual interaction of A. cantonensis with its usual rodent definitive hosts.
Most especially, if the speakers know anything about the effect of ingesting either infective rodent feces or infective invertebrates on poultry and other domestic animals then this would be useful to know. There are solidly documented reports of rat lungworm larvae causing morbidity and mortality in dogs, horses, cockatoos, and other unintended (in the evolutionary sense) definitive hosts which ingest infective intermediate host invertebrates.
Thanks again.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman
"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."
NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt
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Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php
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SPACE is up the main road in Seaview, to the left. Look for signs.
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I know that at least two of the three people currently under treatment in Hilo Medical Center with rat lung worm disease have had positive diagnoses based on tests of their spinal fluid.
