TY - JOUR AU - Schmidberger, Julian AU - Uhlenbruck, Janne AU - Schlingeloff, Patrycja AU - Maksimov, Pavlo AU - Conraths, Franz AU - Mayer, Benjamin AU - Kratzer, Wolfgang T1 - Dog Ownership and Risk for Alveolar Echinococcosis, Germany T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2022 VL - 28 IS - 8 SP - 1597 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Human alveolar echinococcosis is caused by the parasite Echinococcus multilocularis, and dog ownership has been identified as a risk factor. We sought to specify the factors of dog ownership underlying this risk by conducting a case–control study among dog owners in Germany. The analysis revealed an increased odds ratio of ≈7-fold for dog owners whose dogs roam unattended in fields, 13-fold for dog owners who feed their dogs organic waste daily, 4-fold for dog owners who take their dog to a veterinarian only in case of illness, and 10-fold for dog owners who have never been informed by a veterinarian about the risk for infection. The results highlight the risk for infection associated with various factors of dog ownership and the value of veterinarians informing owners about prevention. KW - Alveolar echinococcosis KW - Echinococcus multilocularis KW - risk factor KW - dog ownership KW - case-control study KW - tapeworm KW - parasites KW - Germany DO - 10.3201/eid2808.212514 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/28/8/21-2514_article ER - End of Reference