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Stephen Vantassel here wildlife control consultant talking about the wildlife for you all of you out there and pesky world. This week I wanted to talk about another disease namely raccoon roundworm is also known as Baylisascaris procyonis sounds like a pretty fancy word but all that means is the roundworm of the raccoon. So Baylisascaris roundworm is a common genre of worms and Baylisascaris certainly a specific one and then procyonis means raccoon. So this particular roundworm is associated with raccoons because raccoons are the primary host or a carrier or a reservoir might be a better way to host. Probably is not quite the perfect word for it because Raccoons don’t seem to be harmed by this particular worm that they’re carrying so they’re more of a reservoir but they’re the primary carrier of this particular worm and given how common raccoons are in the United States this roundworm is pretty common and so the research shows in turn when they’ve done surveys that it occurs pretty much throughout the United States a little less prevalent in the south.
As A Precaution you want to assume that all raccoon droppings are likely infected
[00:01:28] But again this data is a little bit old so I’m not sure how much I would particularly trusted. I mean whenever you’re looking at surveys people like to think of themselves as not being part of that survey.
[00:01:42] But the reality is how do you know that your particular feces is not infected. So for all practical purposes if you want to just assume that all raccoon droppings are likely infected with raccoon round worm. So. Let me talk a little bit about this particular round worm and the infection it causes for for humans. And I’m getting my information primarily from William J. Murray and Kevin R. Kazacos their article entitled Raccoon Roundworm Encephalitis is a inflammation of the brain. And so that’s one of the side effects that is caused by infection with raccoon round raccoon round worm is the worm though as it’s moving through your body gets up into your brain tissue and then your body’s immune response causes a violent inflammation that can cause brain damage and of course the worm itself can do its damage as it’s chewing its way through your body. This particular article was published in 2004 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on November 15th
[00:02:55] And the page numbers are fourteen eighty four through fourteen ninety two and I believe this journal article if you care to read it will be available on Google Scholar or through a regular web search because I believe it’s a government publication so it’s available at no additional cost for download. Again you know what. Those of you listen to me regularly know that I hate the word free when we’re dealing with the government because it’s paid for by our taxes so it’s not free. You just don’t have to pay for it again. So Kazacos if those of you have been doing any work in the field of raccoon round where is the premier researcher on raccoon round where he’s been. He’s retired now but when he was working he was early pioneer in this particular area and did a trim almost of the publications on this particular worm have his name on it. So Kazacos I hope I’m pronouncing that name correctly but he is the man when it comes to raccoon round worm I don’t know who’s picked up the mantle since he retired but he’s the work he’s done has been foundational to our understanding of this particular parasite.
Concerns that I have in the wildlife control industry
[00:04:18] So let’s delve into this particular disease or illness isn’t pleasant but one of the concerns that I have in the wildlife control industry is really the sort of cavalier nature that many people in the industry have toward zoonotic. So part of my concern is to raise awareness about some of the diseases and infections that can be available to infect the people involved in this business so that we hopefully through awareness we get a little bit more less arrogance and a little less cavalier attitude towards the work that we’re doing. And so people take proper precautions because. The reality is is that if people are protecting themselves. The likelihood of them contracting these diseases is pretty low actually can almost be zero unless something accidental occurs. So it’s the these diseases are scary like when we talked about rabies last time now I’m talking about raccoon round worm. They’re scary to be sure but proper precautions and awareness really eliminates that risk to zero to people who are careful and knowledgeable with what you’re doing. So I hope that this is an empowering thing that it scares you enough to change your behavior but not scares you so much that you just shut down emotionally and not really take to heart some of these things so that you become a big perform the practices of being safe all the time and treating animals as disease carrying organisms not that we hate wildlife we don’t hope you don’t but that we treat them as potentially dangerous.
[00:06:02] And with respect that we need to have. So let’s delve into this raccoon round where I’m here so understand that it’s a nematode its a nematode parasite that infects more than a hundred species of animals so even though we call it raccoon round worm it’s critical that you understand that raccoons aren’t the only animals that carry this particular parasite. So the bottom line is I tell people Look poo is bad don’t touch that. So if you’re out whatever you’re dealing with feces because this worm sheds it lives in the intestines of many animals most shed its eggs while it’s in the intestines and therefore it comes out through the fecal matter of animals treat poo is dangerous. And so just because you’re not dealing with a raccoon poo at this particular moment doesn’t mean that poo doesn’t have Raccoon round worm in it. This particular nematode.
[00:07:00] So when an organism is infected by it and by infected we’re meaning it’s not just harbouring it but the worm is you know been able to permeate the intestinal wall and has wiggled its way into other parts of the organism that organism begins display some neurological symptoms. If the infection is severe enough and that infection is dependent on how many eggs have been consumed.
[00:07:29] So a colleague of mine describes it this way and this is not from the article but he says what happens is when you ingest the eggs the the stomach acids and intestinal fluids are not necessarily a conducive environment for these round worm with these round worms and so they begin to seek out a better environment and that’s why they permeate through the intestinal wall.
[00:07:58] And once they permeate permeate the intestinal wall they may hit the bloodstream and then travel through your body. Now they may encapsulate in some muscle tissue somewhere and where you may become asymptomatic. So a lot of people can be infected and not even know they’re infected. But for those individuals who have consumed enough eggs and they have a heavy enough load in their body their body will have a greater immune response reaction. That’s where the inflammation comes in sometimes those worms will find their way into various bodily organs or they can do damage.
[00:08:37] They can also enter the eye where they can actually begin chewing their way through your vitriol fluid in your eye. In fact when if you go to an eye doctor excuse me if you go to an eye doctor they may be to actually see the worms in where they can actually treat the worms. That’s one of the part portions of the infection they can actually treat where they can use a laser to kill the worm in the eye. Now. The damage that the worm has done is it’s eating its way through is permanent but they can stop future damaged by the use of lasers. And then if the worms of course get up into your brain tissue there that’s where the massive brain inflammation can occur and it can result into severe neurological division deficiency where you as an offense you become you can become a vegetable. For not the most pleasant word to use but where you really become incapacitated and in some cases death will occur. And so this is how it’s a serious it’s a serious infection. So when was this particular round worm disease discovered. Well it was first identified in 1984 and 1985 was relatively recent our awareness of this particular infection. And so by the time this particular article was written just to remind you was written in 2004 they had researchers had identified twelve additional cases. Of people who contracted round worm infection. These were humans we’re talking about not wildlife these are humans with a few additional individuals that had that where they were suspicious that they were infected but that was not proven.
[00:10:31] You may think well you know hey that’s not a big deal being 12 people you know maybe 14 to 16 different people in the space of over 20 years. Wow. What’s the big deal Stephen why are you being such a heavy about this. Well a couple of things one it’s serious. Number two is that it’s under identified and that is a lot of these zoonotic diseases are more common than people realize.
[00:11:00] And I’m not saying that they’re like epidemic or anything like that. That’s not what I’m suggesting. But that more people have been infected with these things but they’re under diagnosed because medical physicians and pediatricians are not looking for it. It’s not one of the challenges in medicine is that doctors are taught not to look for zebras when they hear hoofbeats. Why. Because we don’t have a hoof. We don’t have zebras in United States the challenge of course is is that those of us in the industry
Do children have access to those areas that are contaminated with raccoon feces
[00:11:35] We are more likely to be exposed to a lot of these infections that our doctors are not necessarily familiar with. So you as a wildlife professional need to be able to caution. Clients was particularly with small children when they have raccoon toilets are they. Do children have access to those areas that are contaminated with raccoon feces. Because kids have a tendency to get their hands into dirt and soil and if it’s contaminated with raccoon droppings and they stick their fingers their dirty fingers in their mouth which kids are wont to do they could ingest these eggs and become infected. And this is how the vast majority of people who have been infected were infected they were children working in containment playing in contaminated areas and they ingested these particular round where makes the Twelve individuals that he that he identified and that the authors identified in their article.
[00:12:34] The vast majority of them were under 18 with most of them actually being less than age five. However there were a couple of individuals that were older one was 17. One even was 21 years old.
[00:12:51] And so some of these individuals had like the 21 year old you may think that’s really weird. Why would this individual have raccoon be eating raccoon feces. Well the person had a condition known as a Geophagia o which means they like to eat soil. And so that is one of the challenges that people have disability or or b over behavioral action where they like to eat soil then obviously they’re going to be higher risk but some of the and most of the people who were ingested these. Feces didn’t necessarily have this problem although fair enough as I’m looking at the list a fair number of them did. Some of them have also a condition known as pica which is again that sort of picking at things as I recall it’s where they’re just always eating eating things that they probably shouldn’t be eating. Some of them also had Down syndrome again. So there are people that didn’t necessarily have all of their mental faculties available to them and they were they would do things that maybe an ordinary child wouldn’t do. Nevertheless. There have been people that that didn’t have Down syndrome who’ve been infected as well so some one case as I recall it was actually children were playing in the soil below a down spout where the raccoon had been defecating on the roof of the building and the rain water washed the fecal material down off the guttering down to the down spout which then spilled out onto the soil where the child was playing and the chilled child got infected that way by getting dirty hands sticking their hands in their mouth and was infected that way.
[00:14:45] So. It is easier to occur than people realize particularly like the raccoons like to defecate in sandboxes so people that have sandboxes that aren’t covered they can have their children exposed that way as well. And so typically it tends to be children who are at greatest risk because they’re the ones who are least likely to be washing their hands and more likely to be involved in they’re not as fearful of getting into poo basically. So this is one of the challenges that we have to have. So when you have clients with raccoons and they have small children you need to be a little bit more aggressive and attentive to be sharing that those children are being protected from being having access to the raccoon toilet into areas that the toilet may have contaminated through rainwater that would spill spread that material over a wider area. So you can see your job is a little bit more complicated than that it seems
So how do raccoons become infected.
[00:15:54] So let me continue. So how do raccoons become infected. Well raccoons become infected in one of two ways. Juvenile and juvenile raccoons typically become infected through the environment itself as they’re eating things off of the ground. They’ll be they’ll ingest the eggs in that particular manner. Older raccoons tend to pick up the raccoon round worm by eating other organisms that are already infected with the round work so as raccoons as you know are omnivores. So they eat normally vegetable material but they also prey on other animals. They will as they’re consuming those animals whether it’s carrion you know deadly animal flash or other animals that they capture alive as they feed on these other animals. Those animals may be infected and therefore they’re getting those raccoons were a ro eggs into their body through that particular means so the worm comes in two different genders it has a male and female the female. Once she begins laying eggs she can shed anywhere from twenty thousand to twenty six thousand eggs per gram of feces. Now think about that for a moment. One worm. Who is laying eggs can lay eggs at a rate of 20000 to twenty six thousand eggs per gram. Not ounce gram. Of feces. Now there’s a thousand grams in a kilogram now which is a kilogram kilogram is two point two pounds. So. Do the math. So for raccoon defecate somewhere let’s say we’ll call it four or five ounces of raccoon feces. How many grams is or should be a quarter of a pound. So that would be what about a little about an eighth of a kilogram maybe a ninth of a kilogram. So a ninth of a kilogram out of a thousand so that would be like eleven.
[00:18:19] You know it would be like 100 to 110 grams times 20000 eggs. That’s a lot of eggs. So one. Female worm inside that raccoon can shed damage. The lab is off the rack. Who has more than one worm. Which is likely because raccoons are great hosts for this particular worm. So that the eggs when they’re shedding can be enormous. And you’re not going to to see them because they’re microscopic you can need a microscope to see them. So you have to sort of rely on the fact that poo is bad don’t touch that. Leave that raccoon feces alone lets you know how you’re going to be handling it. Some of the research has found that there have been situations where more than 250000 eggs that’s a quarter of a million eggs per gram. Of feces have been reported for some raccoon droppings. Now that’s obviously an extraordinarily large amount. Think of a quarter of a million. That’s an order of magnitude of ten from the numbers I gave you earlier. So it is huge. And so understand the volume of eggs that we’re talking about here are truly epic. In this particular regard so the eggs once they’re shed become infective in two to four weeks or needs to be a large sort of an incubation period for those eggs to get to the second stage. However those eggs can if they remain in moist soil where they don’t dry out those eggs can remain viable or infective. For years if not decades. So don’t think that time alone is enough to kill those particular eggs because these particular eggs have very strong
[00:20:19] Shells. The skull it for lack of a better word will call it the shell that kind of keeps this egg viable for a much longer period of time than other types of organisms. So it’s so it’s it’s tough when it comes to environmental conditions. However it is you know it’s not it’s not a rock it’s a living thing. So it is subject to various environmental conditions particularly drying. So again as I said it’s moist conditions that the round worm eggs need because this was one of the issues that came up during some work that I did and that was in light of raccoon round worm eggs being in raccoon feces and the number of wildlife control operators that were in attics doing clean outs. Why haven’t we heard more. Wildlife Control operators becoming infected with RAC round where. And again some of them may have been infected but because they’re adults and bigger and more cleaner than children would be there their risk is certainly less. However the other issue is is that typically the raccoon round worms. Are subject to drying conditions. And as you all know that addicts tend to be dry. They also tend to be very warm. And so it’s that combination of dry heat desiccated which is the fancy word for drying out those eggs and so it’s likely what was happening with many of those situations is that by the time the the Wildlife Control Operator entered into the attic and was cleaning out those droppings the droppings were desiccated out or at least enough of them were desiccated out that they weren’t contaminated or they were able to protect themselves enough because it’s not really something that you breathe although I guess theoretically if you get enough airborne eggs and you breathe that in and those eggs got onto the sides of your mouth and then you swallowed it that could be a problem.
[00:22:28] But there fortunately large and so a HEPA filter mask is will easily block those eggs from getting into your body. I mean that’s there they’re large they’re not they’re not Mike they’re not that they’re microscopic but they’re not that microscopic. So these HEPA filter mask is certainly good enough to stop the eggs hands down. So but it’s likely that the desecrating drying conditions in the attic prevented a lot of people from being infected with this particular disease. So that’s that’s the good news because the eggs can be killed. And what does it take to kill and this is a different research piece. This was done by the CDC and you can look this up on your own I don’t have the reference here in front of me but I’m doing this from memory. It was a particular laboratory study and what they did was they took purified eggs. These were eggs that didn’t have any type of other organic materials so these were not eggs in the droppings but these were eggs that had been filtered out. So they’re just pure eggs. No. They had no insulating factors around them. And they put them inside a liquid container and then heated that container a couple of degrees and then looked at the eggs to see when they died they went to find out what was the thermal death point.
If you’re looking to decontaminate something think in terms of Fire.
[00:23:56] What what was the temperature that those eggs needed to be exposed to. To kill the eggs and what they discovered was it required a temperature of one hundred and forty four degrees for at least a minute you may say well it’s not very hard at all. No it’s not. It’s not very hard at all to kill it now. Does an attic ever reach one hundred and forty four degrees. Most of them don’t. However certainly they’ll get up to 120 130 and if it’s long enough that’ll dry out. We don’t know what those numbers are. How long to take those eggs to dry out. We don’t have any research on that so don’t rely on that but we do know that one hundred forty four degrees for pure eggs for at least a minute. The eggs will be deactivated. Now the problem is we as wildlife control operators don’t encounter pure eggs. Our eggs are always mixed in with other organic material which means that those that organic material can act as an insulator that prevents the heat that we’re bringing to bear on those eggs from reaching the eggs so don’t simply. Stick a thermometer in and persay in several hundred and 44 degrees. I’m good. I would go a little bit higher than that to make sure that you overcome any insulating factors of the material that you’re working with. And so. My suggestion now bolted into a different podcast but that you want to be thinking if you’re looking to decontaminate something you’re going to be thinking in terms of Fire.
[00:25:35] Fire is the best. So there you’re looking at well over 400 degrees and again temperature is one thing.
[00:25:43] Heat is another. Temperature is the average of the kinetic activity those molecules but heat is the volume is the measurement of the energy. That’s involved. So you need to have not just temperature but you need to have enough energy there to get through all that insulating material.
[00:26:03] So I’m a big fan of fire so we’ll always flame whatever you can’t whatever you can. I mean obviously if something will burn on you then don’t flame. They can use flame in an attic. So don’t do that. So something catch on fire.
[00:26:19] Don’t use flame but if you’re able to if you’re dealing with things like concrete and asphalt and metal things that you can flame that flame. Otherwise you’d have to be looking at something in the relationship of steam. Now you may say well I thought the eggs thing to dry out. Yes they do. But understand that if you get the temperature high enough. The temperature itself will kill it and steam is 212 degrees and it has a lot of energy that’s released once it changes from a gas to liquid form as it’s cooling off so steam it would be another way you would use steam to clean things that are. That you can’t use flame on
[00:27:04] Is what you’d want to use steam for. You may say Well Stephen why don’t you just use a chemical to to sterilize it. The problem is there’s nothing available that will kill the round where makes. Nothing that is registered. I probably should say so there’s nothing you’re gonna be able to spray that will kill the eggs as they stand
[00:27:26] So you may say well what about bleach will bleach doesn’t kill the eggs all bleach does is it allows you to wash that material away. But it does not kill the eggs. It’s sort of like with soap does for your hands. A lot of people think soap kills germs soap doesn’t kill germs what soap does is it allows it reduces the surface tension of it on your hands that allows you to wash. The germs away but it doesn’t kill the germs. Now if you have an antibacterial soap that’s a different thing altogether. I’m talking about this ordinary soap does not kill the germs. All it does is it washes the germs away same way. That’s what bleach will do. Bleach will allow you to wash those eggs away but it does not kill the eggs. Now even if you’re flaming something even if you’re using steam even if you’re cleaning off surfaces understand you. You’re never going to verify that that is
[00:28:26] Egg free. You’re not going to do that because you just don’t have the scientific capability of determining that it’s pure this totally clean. All you’re going to say is you have reduced the risk which would be true you have reduced the risk.
[00:28:42] So we want to again when we’re talking with clients we want to be sure we don’t over we don’t scare them to the point where they think they have to burn down the universe to protect themselves. We want to be sure they understand that yes we’re cleaning this but it’s not going to be sterile. We’re reducing the risk. Keep your children away from this particular area and you can reduce the risk because again just because you cleaned the particular location today doesn’t mean a raccoon isn’t going to come in tomorrow and defecate on that same spot again. So that’s always going to be a problem. All right. Well back to our round where I’m here again. So
Can you kill the eggs?
[00:29:20] To reiterate Can you kill them. Can you kill the eggs. Yes. One hundred and forty four degrees for at least a minute. Also the pure eggs. The eggs are also subject to drying from high from high heat conditions that we would find in an attic or a hay loft that is dry as long as it’s prolonged it has. But we don’t know how long that’s going to be. So what this means for you is if you’re going to do an attic clean out and you have the raccoons removed you’re not getting any new load. Any new loads in the attic
[00:29:52] Then you’d want to push that off till to the fall. For two reasons one it’s going to be cooler for you. And number two it’s going to be it’s going to give those eggs more time to dry out
Using your full gown your PPE
[00:30:05] Which would reduce the risk for you. Now you’re you’re still going to be. Using your full gown your PPE and all that kind of stuff. So you want to be VIX fear cautious in this area but that’s those are the two reasons why you’d want to do that in the fall. Prolonged Sunlight will kill the eggs as well. You ve radiation kills a lot of different things. So anything that’s going to prolong drying is going to kill those round where makes can the dog become infected. The answer is yes. The likelihood is that your dog can become infected with raccoon round worm eggs and it’s believed that dogs can also shed those feces. So here’s another reason why when you want to be picking up the crap of your dogs and why you want to be treating dog poo is something that can be potentially dangerous as well as I tell people over and over again it may sound silly but poo is bad. Don’t touch that. So be sure you’re always current just about that sort of thing when you’re working. This is why you want to protect yourself before you start crawling around and crawl spaces and underneath decks because you don’t know what you’re crawling through. And you want to be sure you’re protecting yourself. You’re not going to be exposed. So. What happens if humans become if a human becomes infected. What are some of the signs.
What happens if humans become if a human becomes infected.
[00:31:26] Well it is very difficult to determine the symptoms of this particular infection as I said it does cause neurological symptoms but those are very vague and they can be difficult to pin down to a particular cause such as raccoon round where what they do know is that the infection does cause visceral. These are things in your stomach area neurological and ocular issues were very mentioned the eye of the RAC the root worm eating its way through your ah eye. If you get a severe infection you can become. Basically a vegetable and that is very very sad and some people have had that. Sometimes people will develop eye issues and that’s where it’s going into the eye. And so these are it’s it’s vague and this is part of the problem with this particular infection which is why your doctors aren’t going to necessarily be looking for it. It’s not something that’s going to be high on their list of symptoms or diseases to be looking for. Can you treat it. The answer is yes there are some ways to treat it. Ideally you’d want to catch it early so if you know of someone who has been ingesting a raccoon round a raccoon feces or other feces there is some treatments available you’d want and so you’d want to have the person taking those anti worm drugs quickly to try to get that out of their system before those worms begin to migrate elsewhere in the body.
[00:33:07] And there’s a course. Treatments for the inflammation that can result if the worms do begin to move and migrate into the body. Once it starts getting into the brain things are kind of tough to deal with up there. So we really don’t have other good therapies. If it gets that far into the satellite’s area and it’s pretty bad. So we want to. Really focus on prevention. So how do we prevent contracting this disease. Well don’t put things in your mouth. Make sure you’re wearing gloves disposable gloves or making sure you’re not biting your fingernails making sure you’re using good hand washing practices making sure you’re wearing your respirator making sure that you’re wearing your Tyvek suit and that you’re you’re trying to think about how am I possibly contaminating getting fecal material
[00:34:03] On my body on my clothes where I could then touch it and then put it to my mouth. So if you maintain clean practices. You should be fine. The problem is as we get careless in this business you know you begin to you go into a crawl space area you’re still wearing your Tyvek shoe.
[00:34:23] You wipe your hands on the tie vac and then you grab a cigarette or you wipe your hands on your tie that you haven’t taken off and you grab a hamburger. Remember this is a type of business you want to wash your hands before you use the restroom hopefully or washing them after you use the restroom. But you want to definitively be doing it before you go use the restroom.
[00:34:48] So be you do hand washing. Get that grime off your hands making sure you’re wearing gloves. Always be conscious of where you’re putting your hands are you biting your fingernails are you picking your nose rubbing your eyes. These types of things. So even if you’re not going to get raccoon round worm infection there’s a host of other diseases that are out there including ones you can catch from humans when you’re touching mucosal membranes biting your fingernails picking your nose because those are ways that diseases can enter our body. Keep these types of things in mind and so our next on another podcast on the road we’ll talk about doing raccoon toilet cleanups in the process of dealing with that. I’ve already done it. My memory is a little shaky at this point I’ll have to look it up but hopefully this has given you a little bit more insight about this particular worm. If you’re careful of what you’re doing the likelihood of you ever worrying about it contracting it it’s pretty pretty small. Just make sure that you. Deal with the clients with raccoons talk to them about children where the children are playing and the importance of leaving those areas alone. I’m Stephen Vantassel for wildlife control consultant. Back to you. Frank.
As A Precaution you want to assume that all raccoon droppings are likely infected
[00:01:28] But again this data is a little bit old so I’m not sure how much I would particularly trusted. I mean whenever you’re looking at surveys people like to think of themselves as not being part of that survey.
[00:01:42] But the reality is how do you know that your particular feces is not infected. So for all practical purposes if you want to just assume that all raccoon droppings are likely infected with raccoon round worm. So. Let me talk a little bit about this particular round worm and the infection it causes for for humans. And I’m getting my information primarily from William J. Murray and Kevin R. Kazacos their article entitled Raccoon Roundworm Encephalitis is a inflammation of the brain. And so that’s one of the side effects that is caused by infection with raccoon round raccoon round worm is the worm though as it’s moving through your body gets up into your brain tissue and then your body’s immune response causes a violent inflammation that can cause brain damage and of course the worm itself can do its damage as it’s chewing its way through your body. This particular article was published in 2004 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on November 15th
[00:02:55] And the page numbers are fourteen eighty four through fourteen ninety two and I believe this journal article if you care to read it will be available on Google Scholar or through a regular web search because I believe it’s a government publication so it’s available at no additional cost for download. Again you know what. Those of you listen to me regularly know that I hate the word free when we’re dealing with the government because it’s paid for by our taxes so it’s not free. You just don’t have to pay for it again. So Kazacos if those of you have been doing any work in the field of raccoon round where is the premier researcher on raccoon round where he’s been. He’s retired now but when he was working he was early pioneer in this particular area and did a trim almost of the publications on this particular worm have his name on it. So Kazacos I hope I’m pronouncing that name correctly but he is the man when it comes to raccoon round worm I don’t know who’s picked up the mantle since he retired but he’s the work he’s done has been foundational to our understanding of this particular parasite.
Concerns that I have in the wildlife control industry
[00:04:18] So let’s delve into this particular disease or illness isn’t pleasant but one of the concerns that I have in the wildlife control industry is really the sort of cavalier nature that many people in the industry have toward zoonotic. So part of my concern is to raise awareness about some of the diseases and infections that can be available to infect the people involved in this business so that we hopefully through awareness we get a little bit more less arrogance and a little less cavalier attitude towards the work that we’re doing. And so people take proper precautions because. The reality is is that if people are protecting themselves. The likelihood of them contracting these diseases is pretty low actually can almost be zero unless something accidental occurs. So it’s the these diseases are scary like when we talked about rabies last time now I’m talking about raccoon round worm. They’re scary to be sure but proper precautions and awareness really eliminates that risk to zero to people who are careful and knowledgeable with what you’re doing. So I hope that this is an empowering thing that it scares you enough to change your behavior but not scares you so much that you just shut down emotionally and not really take to heart some of these things so that you become a big perform the practices of being safe all the time and treating animals as disease carrying organisms not that we hate wildlife we don’t hope you don’t but that we treat them as potentially dangerous.
[00:06:02] And with respect that we need to have. So let’s delve into this raccoon round where I’m here so understand that it’s a nematode its a nematode parasite that infects more than a hundred species of animals so even though we call it raccoon round worm it’s critical that you understand that raccoons aren’t the only animals that carry this particular parasite. So the bottom line is I tell people Look poo is bad don’t touch that. So if you’re out whatever you’re dealing with feces because this worm sheds it lives in the intestines of many animals most shed its eggs while it’s in the intestines and therefore it comes out through the fecal matter of animals treat poo is dangerous. And so just because you’re not dealing with a raccoon poo at this particular moment doesn’t mean that poo doesn’t have Raccoon round worm in it. This particular nematode.
[00:07:00] So when an organism is infected by it and by infected we’re meaning it’s not just harbouring it but the worm is you know been able to permeate the intestinal wall and has wiggled its way into other parts of the organism that organism begins display some neurological symptoms. If the infection is severe enough and that infection is dependent on how many eggs have been consumed.
[00:07:29] So a colleague of mine describes it this way and this is not from the article but he says what happens is when you ingest the eggs the the stomach acids and intestinal fluids are not necessarily a conducive environment for these round worm with these round worms and so they begin to seek out a better environment and that’s why they permeate through the intestinal wall.
[00:07:58] And once they permeate permeate the intestinal wall they may hit the bloodstream and then travel through your body. Now they may encapsulate in some muscle tissue somewhere and where you may become asymptomatic. So a lot of people can be infected and not even know they’re infected. But for those individuals who have consumed enough eggs and they have a heavy enough load in their body their body will have a greater immune response reaction. That’s where the inflammation comes in sometimes those worms will find their way into various bodily organs or they can do damage.
[00:08:37] They can also enter the eye where they can actually begin chewing their way through your vitriol fluid in your eye. In fact when if you go to an eye doctor excuse me if you go to an eye doctor they may be to actually see the worms in where they can actually treat the worms. That’s one of the part portions of the infection they can actually treat where they can use a laser to kill the worm in the eye. Now. The damage that the worm has done is it’s eating its way through is permanent but they can stop future damaged by the use of lasers. And then if the worms of course get up into your brain tissue there that’s where the massive brain inflammation can occur and it can result into severe neurological division deficiency where you as an offense you become you can become a vegetable. For not the most pleasant word to use but where you really become incapacitated and in some cases death will occur. And so this is how it’s a serious it’s a serious infection. So when was this particular round worm disease discovered. Well it was first identified in 1984 and 1985 was relatively recent our awareness of this particular infection. And so by the time this particular article was written just to remind you was written in 2004 they had researchers had identified twelve additional cases. Of people who contracted round worm infection. These were humans we’re talking about not wildlife these are humans with a few additional individuals that had that where they were suspicious that they were infected but that was not proven.
[00:10:31] You may think well you know hey that’s not a big deal being 12 people you know maybe 14 to 16 different people in the space of over 20 years. Wow. What’s the big deal Stephen why are you being such a heavy about this. Well a couple of things one it’s serious. Number two is that it’s under identified and that is a lot of these zoonotic diseases are more common than people realize.
[00:11:00] And I’m not saying that they’re like epidemic or anything like that. That’s not what I’m suggesting. But that more people have been infected with these things but they’re under diagnosed because medical physicians and pediatricians are not looking for it. It’s not one of the challenges in medicine is that doctors are taught not to look for zebras when they hear hoofbeats. Why. Because we don’t have a hoof. We don’t have zebras in United States the challenge of course is is that those of us in the industry
Do children have access to those areas that are contaminated with raccoon feces
[00:11:35] We are more likely to be exposed to a lot of these infections that our doctors are not necessarily familiar with. So you as a wildlife professional need to be able to caution. Clients was particularly with small children when they have raccoon toilets are they. Do children have access to those areas that are contaminated with raccoon feces. Because kids have a tendency to get their hands into dirt and soil and if it’s contaminated with raccoon droppings and they stick their fingers their dirty fingers in their mouth which kids are wont to do they could ingest these eggs and become infected. And this is how the vast majority of people who have been infected were infected they were children working in containment playing in contaminated areas and they ingested these particular round where makes the Twelve individuals that he that he identified and that the authors identified in their article.
[00:12:34] The vast majority of them were under 18 with most of them actually being less than age five. However there were a couple of individuals that were older one was 17. One even was 21 years old.
[00:12:51] And so some of these individuals had like the 21 year old you may think that’s really weird. Why would this individual have raccoon be eating raccoon feces. Well the person had a condition known as a Geophagia o which means they like to eat soil. And so that is one of the challenges that people have disability or or b over behavioral action where they like to eat soil then obviously they’re going to be higher risk but some of the and most of the people who were ingested these. Feces didn’t necessarily have this problem although fair enough as I’m looking at the list a fair number of them did. Some of them have also a condition known as pica which is again that sort of picking at things as I recall it’s where they’re just always eating eating things that they probably shouldn’t be eating. Some of them also had Down syndrome again. So there are people that didn’t necessarily have all of their mental faculties available to them and they were they would do things that maybe an ordinary child wouldn’t do. Nevertheless. There have been people that that didn’t have Down syndrome who’ve been infected as well so some one case as I recall it was actually children were playing in the soil below a down spout where the raccoon had been defecating on the roof of the building and the rain water washed the fecal material down off the guttering down to the down spout which then spilled out onto the soil where the child was playing and the chilled child got infected that way by getting dirty hands sticking their hands in their mouth and was infected that way.
[00:14:45] So. It is easier to occur than people realize particularly like the raccoons like to defecate in sandboxes so people that have sandboxes that aren’t covered they can have their children exposed that way as well. And so typically it tends to be children who are at greatest risk because they’re the ones who are least likely to be washing their hands and more likely to be involved in they’re not as fearful of getting into poo basically. So this is one of the challenges that we have to have. So when you have clients with raccoons and they have small children you need to be a little bit more aggressive and attentive to be sharing that those children are being protected from being having access to the raccoon toilet into areas that the toilet may have contaminated through rainwater that would spill spread that material over a wider area. So you can see your job is a little bit more complicated than that it seems
So how do raccoons become infected.
[00:15:54] So let me continue. So how do raccoons become infected. Well raccoons become infected in one of two ways. Juvenile and juvenile raccoons typically become infected through the environment itself as they’re eating things off of the ground. They’ll be they’ll ingest the eggs in that particular manner. Older raccoons tend to pick up the raccoon round worm by eating other organisms that are already infected with the round work so as raccoons as you know are omnivores. So they eat normally vegetable material but they also prey on other animals. They will as they’re consuming those animals whether it’s carrion you know deadly animal flash or other animals that they capture alive as they feed on these other animals. Those animals may be infected and therefore they’re getting those raccoons were a ro eggs into their body through that particular means so the worm comes in two different genders it has a male and female the female. Once she begins laying eggs she can shed anywhere from twenty thousand to twenty six thousand eggs per gram of feces. Now think about that for a moment. One worm. Who is laying eggs can lay eggs at a rate of 20000 to twenty six thousand eggs per gram. Not ounce gram. Of feces. Now there’s a thousand grams in a kilogram now which is a kilogram kilogram is two point two pounds. So. Do the math. So for raccoon defecate somewhere let’s say we’ll call it four or five ounces of raccoon feces. How many grams is or should be a quarter of a pound. So that would be what about a little about an eighth of a kilogram maybe a ninth of a kilogram. So a ninth of a kilogram out of a thousand so that would be like eleven.
[00:18:19] You know it would be like 100 to 110 grams times 20000 eggs. That’s a lot of eggs. So one. Female worm inside that raccoon can shed damage. The lab is off the rack. Who has more than one worm. Which is likely because raccoons are great hosts for this particular worm. So that the eggs when they’re shedding can be enormous. And you’re not going to to see them because they’re microscopic you can need a microscope to see them. So you have to sort of rely on the fact that poo is bad don’t touch that. Leave that raccoon feces alone lets you know how you’re going to be handling it. Some of the research has found that there have been situations where more than 250000 eggs that’s a quarter of a million eggs per gram. Of feces have been reported for some raccoon droppings. Now that’s obviously an extraordinarily large amount. Think of a quarter of a million. That’s an order of magnitude of ten from the numbers I gave you earlier. So it is huge. And so understand the volume of eggs that we’re talking about here are truly epic. In this particular regard so the eggs once they’re shed become infective in two to four weeks or needs to be a large sort of an incubation period for those eggs to get to the second stage. However those eggs can if they remain in moist soil where they don’t dry out those eggs can remain viable or infective. For years if not decades. So don’t think that time alone is enough to kill those particular eggs because these particular eggs have very strong
[00:20:19] Shells. The skull it for lack of a better word will call it the shell that kind of keeps this egg viable for a much longer period of time than other types of organisms. So it’s so it’s it’s tough when it comes to environmental conditions. However it is you know it’s not it’s not a rock it’s a living thing. So it is subject to various environmental conditions particularly drying. So again as I said it’s moist conditions that the round worm eggs need because this was one of the issues that came up during some work that I did and that was in light of raccoon round worm eggs being in raccoon feces and the number of wildlife control operators that were in attics doing clean outs. Why haven’t we heard more. Wildlife Control operators becoming infected with RAC round where. And again some of them may have been infected but because they’re adults and bigger and more cleaner than children would be there their risk is certainly less. However the other issue is is that typically the raccoon round worms. Are subject to drying conditions. And as you all know that addicts tend to be dry. They also tend to be very warm. And so it’s that combination of dry heat desiccated which is the fancy word for drying out those eggs and so it’s likely what was happening with many of those situations is that by the time the the Wildlife Control Operator entered into the attic and was cleaning out those droppings the droppings were desiccated out or at least enough of them were desiccated out that they weren’t contaminated or they were able to protect themselves enough because it’s not really something that you breathe although I guess theoretically if you get enough airborne eggs and you breathe that in and those eggs got onto the sides of your mouth and then you swallowed it that could be a problem.
[00:22:28] But there fortunately large and so a HEPA filter mask is will easily block those eggs from getting into your body. I mean that’s there they’re large they’re not they’re not Mike they’re not that they’re microscopic but they’re not that microscopic. So these HEPA filter mask is certainly good enough to stop the eggs hands down. So but it’s likely that the desecrating drying conditions in the attic prevented a lot of people from being infected with this particular disease. So that’s that’s the good news because the eggs can be killed. And what does it take to kill and this is a different research piece. This was done by the CDC and you can look this up on your own I don’t have the reference here in front of me but I’m doing this from memory. It was a particular laboratory study and what they did was they took purified eggs. These were eggs that didn’t have any type of other organic materials so these were not eggs in the droppings but these were eggs that had been filtered out. So they’re just pure eggs. No. They had no insulating factors around them. And they put them inside a liquid container and then heated that container a couple of degrees and then looked at the eggs to see when they died they went to find out what was the thermal death point.
If you’re looking to decontaminate something think in terms of Fire.
[00:23:56] What what was the temperature that those eggs needed to be exposed to. To kill the eggs and what they discovered was it required a temperature of one hundred and forty four degrees for at least a minute you may say well it’s not very hard at all. No it’s not. It’s not very hard at all to kill it now. Does an attic ever reach one hundred and forty four degrees. Most of them don’t. However certainly they’ll get up to 120 130 and if it’s long enough that’ll dry out. We don’t know what those numbers are. How long to take those eggs to dry out. We don’t have any research on that so don’t rely on that but we do know that one hundred forty four degrees for pure eggs for at least a minute. The eggs will be deactivated. Now the problem is we as wildlife control operators don’t encounter pure eggs. Our eggs are always mixed in with other organic material which means that those that organic material can act as an insulator that prevents the heat that we’re bringing to bear on those eggs from reaching the eggs so don’t simply. Stick a thermometer in and persay in several hundred and 44 degrees. I’m good. I would go a little bit higher than that to make sure that you overcome any insulating factors of the material that you’re working with. And so. My suggestion now bolted into a different podcast but that you want to be thinking if you’re looking to decontaminate something you’re going to be thinking in terms of Fire.
[00:25:35] Fire is the best. So there you’re looking at well over 400 degrees and again temperature is one thing.
[00:25:43] Heat is another. Temperature is the average of the kinetic activity those molecules but heat is the volume is the measurement of the energy. That’s involved. So you need to have not just temperature but you need to have enough energy there to get through all that insulating material.
[00:26:03] So I’m a big fan of fire so we’ll always flame whatever you can’t whatever you can. I mean obviously if something will burn on you then don’t flame. They can use flame in an attic. So don’t do that. So something catch on fire.
[00:26:19] Don’t use flame but if you’re able to if you’re dealing with things like concrete and asphalt and metal things that you can flame that flame. Otherwise you’d have to be looking at something in the relationship of steam. Now you may say well I thought the eggs thing to dry out. Yes they do. But understand that if you get the temperature high enough. The temperature itself will kill it and steam is 212 degrees and it has a lot of energy that’s released once it changes from a gas to liquid form as it’s cooling off so steam it would be another way you would use steam to clean things that are. That you can’t use flame on
[00:27:04] Is what you’d want to use steam for. You may say Well Stephen why don’t you just use a chemical to to sterilize it. The problem is there’s nothing available that will kill the round where makes. Nothing that is registered. I probably should say so there’s nothing you’re gonna be able to spray that will kill the eggs as they stand
[00:27:26] So you may say well what about bleach will bleach doesn’t kill the eggs all bleach does is it allows you to wash that material away. But it does not kill the eggs. It’s sort of like with soap does for your hands. A lot of people think soap kills germs soap doesn’t kill germs what soap does is it allows it reduces the surface tension of it on your hands that allows you to wash. The germs away but it doesn’t kill the germs. Now if you have an antibacterial soap that’s a different thing altogether. I’m talking about this ordinary soap does not kill the germs. All it does is it washes the germs away same way. That’s what bleach will do. Bleach will allow you to wash those eggs away but it does not kill the eggs. Now even if you’re flaming something even if you’re using steam even if you’re cleaning off surfaces understand you. You’re never going to verify that that is
[00:28:26] Egg free. You’re not going to do that because you just don’t have the scientific capability of determining that it’s pure this totally clean. All you’re going to say is you have reduced the risk which would be true you have reduced the risk.
[00:28:42] So we want to again when we’re talking with clients we want to be sure we don’t over we don’t scare them to the point where they think they have to burn down the universe to protect themselves. We want to be sure they understand that yes we’re cleaning this but it’s not going to be sterile. We’re reducing the risk. Keep your children away from this particular area and you can reduce the risk because again just because you cleaned the particular location today doesn’t mean a raccoon isn’t going to come in tomorrow and defecate on that same spot again.
[00:29:12] So that’s always going to be a problem. All right. Well back to our round where I’m here again. So
Can you kill the eggs?
[00:29:20] To reiterate Can you kill them. Can you kill the eggs. Yes. One hundred and forty four degrees for at least a minute. Also the pure eggs. The eggs are also subject to drying from high from high heat conditions that we would find in an attic or a hay loft that is dry as long as it’s prolonged it has. But we don’t know how long that’s going to be. So what this means for you is if you’re going to do an attic clean out and you have the raccoons removed you’re not getting any new load. Any new loads in the attic
[00:29:52] Then you’d want to push that off till to the fall. For two reasons one it’s going to be cooler for you. And number two it’s going to be it’s going to give those eggs more time to dry out
What happens if humans become if a human becomes infected?
[00:30:05] Which would reduce the risk for you. Now you’re you’re still going to be. Using your full gown your PPE and all that kind of stuff. So you want to be VIX fear cautious in this area but that’s those are the two reasons why you’d want to do that in the fall. Prolonged Sunlight will kill the eggs as well. You ve radiation kills a lot of different things. So anything that’s going to prolong drying is going to kill those round where makes can the dog become infected. The answer is yes. The likelihood is that your dog can become infected with raccoon round worm eggs and it’s believed that dogs can also shed those feces. So here’s another reason why when you want to be picking up the crap of your dogs and why you want to be treating dog poo is something that can be potentially dangerous as well as I tell people over and over again it may sound silly but poo is bad. Don’t touch that. So be sure you’re always current just about that sort of thing when you’re working. This is why you want to protect yourself before you start crawling around and crawl spaces and underneath decks because you don’t know what you’re crawling through. And you want to be sure you’re protecting yourself. You’re not going to be exposed. So. What happens if humans become if a human becomes infected. What are some of the signs.
[00:31:26] Well it is very difficult to determine the symptoms of this particular infection as I said it does cause neurological symptoms but those are very vague and they can be difficult to pin down to a particular cause such as raccoon round where what they do know is that the infection does cause visceral. These are things in your stomach area neurological and ocular issues were very mentioned the eye of the RAC the root worm eating its way through your ah eye. If you get a severe infection you can become. Basically a vegetable and that is very very sad and some people have had that. Sometimes people will develop eye issues and that’s where it’s going into the eye. And so these are it’s it’s vague and this is part of the problem with this particular infection which is why your doctors aren’t going to necessarily be looking for it. It’s not something that’s going to be high on their list of symptoms or diseases to be looking for. Can you treat it. The answer is yes there are some ways to treat it. Ideally you’d want to catch it early so if you know of someone who has been ingesting a raccoon round a raccoon feces or other feces there is some treatments available you’d want and so you’d want to have the person taking those anti worm drugs quickly to try to get that out of their system before those worms begin to migrate elsewhere in the body.
Really focus on prevention.
[00:33:07] And there’s a course. Treatments for the inflammation that can result if the worms do begin to move and migrate into the body. Once it starts getting into the brain things are kind of tough to deal with up there. So we really don’t have other good therapies. If it gets that far into the satellite’s area and it’s pretty bad. So we want to. Really focus on prevention. So how do we prevent contracting this disease. Well don’t put things in your mouth. Make sure you’re wearing gloves disposable gloves or making sure you’re not biting your fingernails making sure you’re using good hand washing practices making sure you’re wearing your respirator making sure that you’re wearing your Tyvek suit and that you’re you’re trying to think about how am I possibly contaminating getting fecal material
[00:34:03] On my body on my clothes where I could then touch it and then put it to my mouth. So if you maintain clean practices. You should be fine. The problem is as we get careless in this business you know you begin to you go into a crawl space area you’re still wearing your Tyvek shoe.
[00:34:23] You wipe your hands on the tie vac and then you grab a cigarette or you wipe your hands on your tie that you haven’t taken off and you grab a hamburger. Remember this is a type of business you want to wash your hands before you use the restroom hopefully or washing them after you use the restroom. But you want to definitively be doing it before you go use the restroom.
[00:34:48] So be you do hand washing. Get that grime off your hands making sure you’re wearing gloves. Always be conscious of where you’re putting your hands are you biting your fingernails are you picking your nose rubbing your eyes. These types of things. So even if you’re not going to get raccoon round worm infection there’s a host of other diseases that are out there including ones you can catch from humans when you’re touching mucosal membranes biting your fingernails picking your nose because those are ways that diseases can enter our body. Keep these types of things in mind and so our next on another podcast on the road we’ll talk about doing raccoon toilet cleanups in the process of dealing with that. I’ve already done it. My memory is a little shaky at this point I’ll have to look it up but hopefully this has given you a little bit more insight about this particular worm. If you’re careful of what you’re doing the likelihood of you ever worrying about it contracting it it’s pretty pretty small. Just make sure that you. Deal with the clients with raccoons talk to them about children where the children are playing and the importance of leaving those areas alone. I’m Stephe Vantassel for wildlife control consultant. Back to you. Frank.
