10/05/2023
We have a serious issue to share with you today - a case of tongue worm has recently been reported in a dog in the UK. Although this is seen from time to time in imported dogs, this is the first reported case in a dog that has never left the UK.
The dog is a 3 year old Collie, who coughed up a worm. The owner took a photo of it, then the worm was submitted for analysis, and confirmed to be tongue worm by a specialist.
Tongue worm (Linguatula serrata) lives in the nose and upper airways of dogs and cats, and is named tongue worm because it is tongue shaped. The concern is that it can spread to humans from infected dogs.
Dogs become infected by eating raw, infected meat. This dog was on a raw diet, so the concern is that it became infected from its diet, which could have contained imported raw meat.
It is known that feeding raw diets can lead to infections with Salmonella, E coli, Camplyobacter, Enterobacteriae, Toxoplasma, Brucella - and now tongue worm.
The dog has been successfully treated with suitable wormers, which is at least some good news.
Thursday 11th May 2023: there are a lot of comments coming questioning how the dog became infected, so we'd like to share with you the lifecycle to help explain it:
Life Cycle and Transmission
There are intermediate hosts and definitive hosts for this parasite.
Intermediate Hosts - sheep, goat, rabbit, man
Tongue worm eggs are passed in the faeces or nasal discharges of an infected definitive host, and are ingested by an intermediate host. Larvae hatch from the eggs and becomes encapsulated in various internal organs where it molts to the nymphal stage.
Definitive Hosts - dogs and other canines
Definitive hosts become infected through ingestion of raw or undercooked internal organs of intermediate hosts containing the nymphs. Upon ingestion, pentastome nymphs pe*****te the host’s intestinal walls and migrate from the intestinal tract to the lungs, nasopharynx, and paranasal sinuses.Pentastome parasites have also been found sublingually.
Once nymphs reach the respiratory tract, they mature to adulthood and lay eggs.
This means that dogs cannot be infected by ingesting the eggs from another infected dog, the parasite must go via an intermediate host then dogs are infected by eating infected organs of this intermediate host.
We hope this clears up the confusion, and thanks for your interest in this post.
