echinococcus granulosus (stray dog from Greece)

I adopted a greek stray dog some time ago, (who unfortunately had to be euthanised 2 months ago due to several diseases) and now I`m a bit conserned for my own health. I gave the dog a medication against tapeworms twice during a 6 month period, but now I have started to think wheather it was enaugh to keep the echinococcus parasites away? What if he was still infested with the worms? How possible is that he might have passed them to me? I don`t know even if he had the echinococcus tape worms, because they are really hard to diagnose.
We lived in a suburban area, there was no sheeps or cattle aroung, and I tried to take care of my personal hygene by washing my hands several times a day, but I`m still worried. I dont want to get sick.
As I understand it dogs get the parasites by eating meat that is contaminated with cysts, and humans get it from the feaces of dogs or other animals, foxes etc by ingesting the eggs of the tapeworms. Am I right? If anybody would have information about the echinococcus situation especially in Athens, that would be great. And I would also like to know how possible it is to get infected, based on my situation.

 

From what Ive read your info is accurate, the statistics Ive seen for Greece are 13 in 100,000 people infected but I couldnt find how common or statistics on dogs or livestock infected. I really think you should talk to your doctor about it if your concerned and let the doctor know about the whole situation with....Sami (it was Sami??).

The shelter Im working at now has rescues in there from Spain, Greece, Portugal....so Im starting to hear about other diseases, parasites etc that Id never heard of in the US. :?

 

Thank, DeLaUK. yeah, I believe that these "exotic" diseases will eventually spread all around the world, due to pets travelling with their owners. In my case, I really tried to do all that I could to prevent what happened, but as you can see it was no good. I had all the bloodtests done, none of which revealed the diseases Sami was carrying asymptomatic. I really naively thought he was healthy.. If I had known he was carrying the diseases, I propably would have looked for another home for the dog in his home country to prevent the stress (from the environmental change) that propably ultimately caused the infections to broke out. These are sad incidents.
Here in Finland people bring dogs from russian dog-shelters, some of which are infectios with parvovirus, and the fear if rabies is always there. There`s no quarantine here. To be honest, according to my experience people are really not aware of the possibility of these dangerous more of exotic infectious diseases. Well, at least medication against tapeworms is still compulsary, when entering the country with an imported pet. Luckyly echinococcus is not YET endemic here in Finland, allthought some cases of this disease has reported in mooses, reindeers and wolves. It is more common in the eastern border, and among the baltic countries.
I would never ever take a dog out of shelter because of pity, that is not a good reason to take a pet. I adopted Sami because he simply was the best dog on earth and I wanted him to my life, he was perfect companion to me, I didn`t wanna "save" him. And here I am again crying..

 

Coming back and forth to Germany (and USA) i had to have my a certificate of health from the vet less than 10 days old. Do they not require that coming inot Finland? That is sort of gross if they don't. but, hey you aren't making the rules.
Did you go to any of the islands? we have/share a little place on parros. Whenever I see the dogs on any of the islands, i think they look nice, but are so covered in ticks, it makes me want to get sick. But I usually just spend the first dqay in Athens going to theport, so I don't know what the dogs look like there as much as I do on the islands.

 

I dont know what the regulations are in Finland but even if that was the case from what Ive been reading about echinococcus is not something theyd find in a fecal test and without doing a 'barage' of more costly tests Im not sure they would find it unless the pet was already showing symptoms and they were actually looking specifically for that. It is a bit worrying though, when I was in CA I had a pretty good idea of which dieseases were both canine, feline specific, host specific and zoonotics and I have to admit with the, probably, few hundred (or more) people Ive worked with there, between the animal hospitals, shelters, training Ive only ever known of very few people that have picked up something from an animal, Ive seen sarcoptic mange on a couple of people, ringworm, roundworm (although the guy thought there was more chance he got that from an undercooked bacon burrito from the 'roach coach')...and I had a scare over what we thought was a rabid cat that had drooled all over a fresh scratch on my hand as I was giving her some medication....(test came back negative though....but it was very scary).
Now Im learning about all different diseases from dogs coming in from all over Europe, Ive never even heard of some them. :?

 

Yes they required the certificate of health less that 10 days old, and we had the piece of paper made after vet examined the dog and took the bloodsamples. Everything was fine, and there was nothing suspicious about the bloodsamples. I understand that leishmania is hard to diagnose from blood, but ehrlichia should have been positive, (because the was infected).
Lil96, yes I have been to Parros once, and I also visited some other islands. Hydra was a different place, because there was no cars and no stray dogs, only cats and donkeys.
and about the echinococcus..I have decided to forget all about it (denial is the best defence), because the risk of it is propably quite low, and even if I had the disease, it would propably take years to develop. And even if I get sick, they can just cut the cycts out of my liver and lungs and I can live happily ever after..
:roll:
For real, I can`t keep on living my life in a bubble, and be afraid of everything. That is something Sami`s life should have thought me.

 

I am glad you tried to help, that takes a great person! But I 'd say don't spend everyday worrying about it, but maybe go and get checked every now and then, just to be safe!!!

 

I would definitely go with not worrying about it! The mind does have great power over the body. Supposedly, people tell me I should be worried about getting e.coli or salmonella or something from my dogs because I feed them raw food, but that's just silly. I wash my hands and the surface I use to cut meat. *shrug*

As far as the ehrlichia being positive from the blood sample - most people do not realize that a "blood test" can be for just about anything. They run select tests when they do a panel, depending on what they are looking for. If they were not concerned about ehrlichia, they would not do the test for it.