Public Health Risks
Most diseases that affect dogs or humans are not transferable between the two species. Diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans are terrmed zoonoses. A well-known zoonosis is rabies, a viral infection transmitted through a bite. A common bacterial zoonosis is leptospirosis, transmitted through urine. Some of the most important zoonoses are parasitic. Zoonotic intestinal parasites transmitted through contact with feces include Toxocara canis (the canine roundworm), which causes toxocariasis, visceral larva migrans, and ocular larva migrans, and hookworms, which can cause cutaneous larva migrans. Zoonotic skin parasites include scabies, caused by the mite Sarcoptes scabiei. The most common zoonotic fungal disease is ringworm, caused in this case by Microsporum canis.
Read more about this topic: Dog Health
Famous quotes containing the words public, health and/or risks:
“It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Woman ... cannot be content with health and agility: she must make exorbitant efforts to appear something that never could exist without a diligent perversion of nature. Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate?”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“There are risks which are not acceptable: the destruction of humanity is one of them.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)