In addition to the forecast, CAPC provides parasite prevalence maps available by clicking here. As a veterinarian, you can use the CAPC Prevalence Maps to monitor the activity level for the disease in any U.S. state and county. To make it even easier to stay abreast of the most up-to-date information, CAPC also offers Automatic Email Updates that can be customized down to the state and even county.  

The maps work well as an educational tool for your clients who want to know more about why they should protect their dogs against parasites year-round. The localized forecasting is also valuable for clients who travel with their dogs and want to protect them from potential infestations in new areas.

Because ticks can be carriers of many diseases, including Lyme disease, it is essential that veterinarians remind their clients of the importance of regular visits and parasite prevention. To prevent any type of infection or infestation, CAPC recommends year-round parasite control medication for dogs and cats, which often requires a monthly application. In addition, CAPC’s guidelines recommend regular examinations — at least annually — by a veterinarian. CAPC Guidelines for Lyme Disease can be found here.

CAPC bases its parasite forecasts on several factors, including temperature, precipitation, humidity, elevation, forest cover, population density, reported Lyme disease cases and deer strikes with cars. The forecast is also the collective expert opinion of respected parasitologists who engage in ongoing research and data interpretation to better understand and monitor disease transmission and changing life cycles.  Click Here to learn more about the forecasts.

Last year’s CAPC Heartworm Prevalence Map tally totaled nearly 4.3 million dogs tested for the parasite, with approximately 48,000 testing positive (or one in 89 dogs) for heartworm. The highest incidences were reported in the Southern and Central parts of the country, with the worst stretching from Texas eastward to North Carolina. Small pockets of activity also occurred in the most Northeast and Northwestern regions as well. To see the full breakout, visit the Heartworm Prevalence Map.

The Parasite Prevalence Maps will continue to be updated frequently throughout 2013 and contain the ability to narrow results by state and even by county. Veterinarians and staff members are encouraged to visit the maps often to stay abreast of the latest information and serve as the parasite expert for their clinic and client base. CAPC also provides automatic email updates for specific parasite activity by state and county. Please Visit the “How To” Page to sign up for this convenient tool today.

CAPC bases its parasite forecasts on several factors, including temperature, precipitation, humidity, elevation, forest cover, population density and reported cases. The forecast is also the collective expert opinion of respected parasitologists who engage in ongoing research and data interpretation to better understand and monitor disease transmission and changing life cycles.

Heartworm prevalence is significant in enough areas that dog and cat owners should be informed about its prevention and strongly encouraged to follow year-round prevention recommendations. There are a number of efficacious products that can meet clients’ needs. Heartworm disease can be deadly, and veterinarians must become stronger advocates for regular prevention to avoid the cost of treatment and potential heartbreak of untreated or undiagnosed disease.

Clinical signs of heartworm disease depend on the stage of the infection; but in later stages, infection with Dirofilaria immitis can cause cough, exercise intolerance, dyspnea, hepatomegaly, syncope, ascites and abnormal heart and lung sounds. CAPC recommends annual testing and year-round treatment with broad-spectrum heartworm anthelmintics that have activity against parasites of zoonotic potential. To learn more about heartworm and other vector-borne diseases, Visit CAPC’s Recommendations Section on its website.

For statistics about the number of dogs that are affected by ehrlichiosis in your local area, you can consult the CAPC Parasite Prevalence Maps. The maps provide up-to-date information of the latest reported cases by county of the number of dogs tested and the number of dogs that tested positive for ehrlichiosis.

For veterinarians, the maps provide a convenient format to monitor the activity level for the disease both nationwide and for the area surrounding their practice. The Parasite Prevalence Maps also help to explain the extent of the disease to pet owners and provide further supplementation as to why year-round protection against parasites is essential. Localized forecasting is also valuable for clients who travel with their dogs and want to protect them from potential infestations in new areas.

To stay informed about the parasite activity in your county, state or the entire country, you can sign up for automatic email updates from CAPC. These updates provide the latest area information to ensure veterinarians have the most readily available data when educating their clients on the importance of parasite control. Visit the “How To” Page for signup instructions to begin receiving the parasite prevalence updates.

CAPC bases its parasite forecasts on several factors, including temperature, precipitation, humidity, elevation, forest cover, population density, reported ehrlichiosis cases and deer strikes with cars. The forecast is also the collective expert opinion of respected parasitologists.  Click Here to learn more about the forecasts.

Anaplasmosis, a tick-borne infectious bacterial disease, is endemic in the Northeast and the northern Plains states. For 2013, the Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC) predicts an even higher-than-normal infection rate for anaplasmosis nationwide. In particular, dogs are at high risk for the disease in the Rocky Mountain region from the border of Mexico to Canada; in the Upper Midwest, especially in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Montana; and in the Northeast, along the Interstate 95 corridor from Philadelphia to Boston.

Because the potential for infection from anaplasmosis is higher than normal, you may want to consult the CAPC Parasite Prevalence Maps to check the risk for disease in your area. The maps provide statistics about the number of dogs affected by anaplasmosis by county and state. If your practice is located in an endemic area, be vigilant with your clients about using a year-round parasite-control medication. You can use the maps as an educational tool to teach clients about the higher-than-normal risk of infection and why they need to protect their dogs against parasites year round.

To stay informed about the parasite activity in your county, state or the entire country, you can sign up for automatic email updates from CAPC. These updates provide the latest area information to ensure veterinarians have the most readily available data when educating clients on the importance of parasite control. Visit the "How To” page for signup instructions to begin receiving the parasite prevalence updates.

CAPC bases its parasite forecasts on several factors, including temperature, precipitation, humidity, elevation, forest cover, population density, reported anaplasmosis cases and deer strikes with cars. The forecast is also the collective expert opinion of respected parasitologists who engage in ongoing research and data interpretation to better understand and monitor disease transmission and changing life cycles.  Click Here to learn more.

Anaplasmosis is spread by the deer tick in the Upper Midwest and Northeast and by the western blacklegged tick in the West. Symptoms can develop within one to two weeks of the bite if one of these tick species attaches to and infects a dog. Common symptoms include fever, lethargy, depression, anorexia and weight loss. Other symptoms may include lymphadenopathy, hemorrhages, epistaxis related to thrombocytopenia, neurologic disease, vomiting, diarrhea and ocular lesions. To learn more about anaplasmosis and other vector-borne diseases, visit CAPC’s Recommendations section.

I was excited to learn that the CAPC collects and records millions of heartworm, Lyme and other pet parasite test results county-by-county across the United States, and updates them on a monthly basis.  Such rich data sets provide a great opportunity to tap some of our seasonal time series methods, which had previously only been applied to climate forecasting.  Given the collaborative potential, I eagerly joined the CAPC team of vector ecologists, entomologists, parasitologists and biologists.

I coordinate the efforts of Clemson experts – some of the country's leading statisticians – to complement the insights of CAPC parasitologists and build parasite forecasts.  Our ever-evolving forecasts are based on logistic regression models that seek to explain the proportion of positive tests in relation to factors such as weather conditions, vegetation indices, wildlife population and human population density. 

For each forecast, we identify the most important risk factors impacting the infection rates in the U.S. canine population of parasitic diseases, including Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis and heartworm. We use a spatial smoothing procedure based on the head-banging algorithm method described by Hansen to create a baseline map. The head-banging algorithm is particularly useful in describing data with high local variations, as it is median-polished (not easily influenced by outliers). This methodology is named after a child’s game where a face is pressed against a board of pins protruding at various lengths, leaving a general impression of the child’s face while smoothing away any excessively varying local features that are more attributable to random chance. We believe head-banging is more effective than classical Kriging smoothing techniques, since the latter could by unduly influenced by a few counties with high parasitic disease prevalence.

In developing parasite forecasts, we always consider human population data from the U.S. Census Bureau and land cover classified imagery with urban, rural and suburban land use classes as helpful model inputs to capture measures of urbanization. Geographic data are readily available from the U.S. Geologic Survey Land Cover Institute, the National Atlas of the United States and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.

We also regularly examine meteorological data. In a forecasting model, weather (daily and monthly, and at various time lags) is expected to influence intra-annual fluctuations. In a static spatial model, climate – rather than weather – may better govern the likelihood a vector can complete its life cycle. In order to incorporate these influences, we include temperature (minimum, maximum, mean and daily variability) and moisture index (calculated based on precipitation and evaporation rates).

The CAPC-Clemson team relies on statistical principles, past experience and related data to forecast which parts of the country will have parasite population flares or increasing parasitic disease incidence in the coming months.  For example, accounting for recent temperature and precipitation patterns added to the reliability of the CAPC’s forecast of Lyme disease risk for the fall of 2012.
By regularly evaluating the factors included in our predictive model, we improve accuracy. We add, subtract, or more heavily weigh some factors in a given year, depending on changing conditions. As we collect more and more data, our forecasts will improve. 

While a lot of complex math, data and a significant amount of analysis go into the CAPC Parasite Forecasts, the bottom line is simple: Parasites pose threats to both pets and people no matter the season, and it’s important to guard against them. The parasite experts at the CAPC say they are preventable with year-round, easy-to-administer medication.

I'm proud to be a part of the CAPC, an organization dedicated to helping pet owners and veterinarians keep their animals and families healthy. I look forward to the evolution and refinement of the parasite forecasts, as we continue to help educate people about parasite risks and provide reminders to follow veterinarians’ recommendations for parasite prevention measures.

The CAPC 2012 Fall Lyme Disease Forecast calls for increased risk in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, the upper Midwest, the Southeastern United States and all along the West Coast. The disease incidence is steadily spreading southward, even into some areas traditionally free or with low incidence of Lyme disease, such as the Midwest and parts of the Southeast. The Northeast continues as the most Lyme-endemic region of the country.

“When the weather cools, parasites are not usually among pet owners’ top concerns; but, they should be. You can never let your guard down when it comes to parasites, especially when you consider, for example, that the adult lxodes scapularis ticks that transmit Lyme disease are most active from October through March in many areas,” said Christopher Carpenter, DVM, MBA, executive director of the CAPC. “Our Fall Forecast supports what veterinarians already overwhelmingly recommend, which is continuous prevention.”

Leading parasitologists with the CAPC work with a team of Clemson University statisticians to develop the Parasite Forecasts. Clemson’s Dr. Robert Lund, the team leader, has been building predictive models for the past 20 years and was instrumental in developing the current weather forecasting models used to assess U.S. hurricanes.

The ever-evolving mathematical model for the CAPC Parasite Forecasts combines historical data, such as parasitic-disease test results from veterinary clinics across the country and changing variables that include weather conditions, vegetation indices, wildlife populations, human population density and human disease prevalence. To improve accuracy, the CAPC-Clemson team regularly evaluates all of the predictive model’s variables and adds, subtracts or more-heavily weighs some in a given year.

The CAPC Parasite Forecasts are among a number of initiatives from the nonprofit that work to raise awareness of parasite risks and remind pet owners that regular veterinary exams are key to keeping their pets and families safe. Complementing the CAPC’s consumer education and clinic marketing efforts are regularly updated prevalence maps on both its consumer and veterinarian-focused websites, which track the incidence of parasite-borne diseases in dogs and cats nationwide.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cross referenced information from these maps with national surveillance data on the occurrence of human Lyme disease, and found that people who live in areas with a higher-than-average number of dogs with Lyme are at greater risk of contracting the infection. So, dogs serve as sentinels for tick-borne disease in humans.

To prevent infections, the CAPC continues to recommend that pet owners administer parasite-control medication to dogs and cats year-round – which often requires a monthly application – and schedule annual veterinarian checkups so that pets may be tested and treated for any external or internal parasites that doctors find.

Each year, millions of pets are infected by parasitic diseases. Even so, roughly half of the more than 78 million pet dogs in the United States are unprotected against parasites, which can be prevented with year-round, easy-to-administer medication.

“Parasite prevention, through pet-owner outreach and education, is the best way to continue to drive hospital visits because parasites are dynamic and many pet owners are non-compliant,” said Carpenter.

The best way to stay informed of the parasite activity in your county, state or the entire country is to sign up for an automatic Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC) Parasite Prevalence Map email updates. The sign-up process is extremely easy. Just follow the example below.

Step 1 - Decide What Species and Disease You Want to Track

Since research shows that veterinary clinics typically attract clients from a radius of 10 miles or less, I want my updates to be for a small geographic area. In this example, I am interested in getting monthly updates on canine Lyme disease for Portland, Maine.

The CAPC Parasite Prevalence Maps go down to the individual county level. Portland, Maine is in Cumberland County. So in this demonstration, I will sign up for updates on Lyme disease in dogs in Cumberland County, Maine.

Step 2 – Navigate to Your Disease and Location

This step is very intuitive. Once I have decided on the species and parasitic disease I want updates on, I simply follow the map prompts to get to that area on the map.

In the first prompt, the maps ask me to choose a category. I select “Tick-Borne Disease Agents”.

In the second prompt, I am asked to choose one of three tick-borne disease agents. In this example, I select “Lyme”.

In the third prompt, I am asked to choose an animal. I select “Dog” to follow canine disease in the area.

Once I click on “Dog”, I am taken to the view of a prevalence map of canine Lyme disease in the United States. This is too broad for me. I want more specific data in my updates. What I need to do now is navigate down to the specific county I need – Cumberland County, Maine.

The first step is to click on the state of Maine in the map. This takes me to the screen below that shows the outline of the state of Maine and asks me to “Click here to view the state of Maine county data”.

I now have a view of the counties in the state of Maine and their relative parasite prevalence. To see the name of the county, I simply move my cursor over each one and the name appears like this.

Now that I have found Cumberland County, I simply click on that county and then see the following screen.

This is my destination on the map. I have now successfully navigated to the disease, species and location data I need. The map shows me the data for that county on the right-hand side. I can see the number of dogs tested, the number of positive cases and the percentage of dogs that tested positive. After reviewing this data, I decide to move forward and sign up for automatic monthly email updates.

Step 3 – Sign up for updates

This is the easiest step of all. To complete this step, I first click on the button that says “Get Updates”. It is clearly marked with a red circle in the image below.

After I hit the button, a box comes up that says “Subscribe to receive updates on Lyme Disease in Cumberland County, State of Maine”. This is exactly what I want so I enter my email address in the box and hit the “Subscribe” button.

A box now appears that says “Thank you for subscribing to CAPC’s Parasite Prevalence Maps”. Success! I am now registered to receive monthly email updates on Lyme disease for canines in Cumberland County, Maine.

And to confirm that I was successful, I receive the following email in my inbox.

I will now receive updates each month unless I cancel this subscription.

This Spring, the CAPC issued it’s first-ever heartworm forecast warning pet owners about the elevated risk for heartworm in many of the regions throughout the U.S.  As part of the CAPC’s ongoing efforts to educate pet owners about the threats parasites pose to pets, the CAPC took this important message to the nation on April 5, 2012 reaching nearly five million viewers via media interviews on network stations from coast to coast. 

The CAPC continues to urge pet owners to visit their veterinarian to discuss the best treatment options for their pets and to prevent against the disease year-round. Start the conversation with your clients today by sharing important information about year-round protection for pets and sign up for monthly updates on the parasite risk in your county by visiting our interactive prevalence maps.

CAPC is pleased to be able to supply your clinic with literature. We strive to help as many practices as possible and therefore we do charge a production fee as well as asking you to pay the shipping costs. You may access free pdf versions of these brochures within the order system that make it easy for you to print or post on your clinic website. We are also working with veterinary software companies to provide electronic versions through these systems.

We are unable to ship outside of the United States and Canada. If you have any questions please inquire via email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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1. Gross examination. Specimens should be examined grossly for the presence of blood, mucus, intact worms, or tapeworm segments.
2. Sample size and preparation. Specimen size should be at least 1 gram of formed feces (1 cubic centimeter or a cube about one-half inch on a side). If feces are soft, sample size should be 2 grams. If it is slurry-like, the sample should be 4 grams. For liquid feces, a sample of 6 grams or greater might be appropriate. Inadequate sample size (e.g., fecal loop sample) may result in false-negative results. To remove large fecal debris, sieving is recommended prior to centrifugation. The sample is sieved through cheesecloth or a tea strainer after mixing with water or flotation solution. Passive flotation kits typically include a device that prevents larger particles from floating to the surface.
3. Flotation solution. Both the type and concentration of sugar or salt solutions used can affect recovery of diagnostic stages of parasites from feces. Common flotation solutes include sodium nitrate, zinc sulfate, sucrose (usually granulated sugar), magnesium sulfate, and sodium chloride. These solutes can be mixed at varying concentrations with water to achieve flotation solutions with different densities. Flotation solutions with higher densities are capable of floating heavier (denser) parasite stages. However, higher density flotation solutions also float many other fecal particles that can render preparations more difficult to examine and can collapse thin-shelled parasite stages, making them difficult to identify or causing them to float poorly. More viscous solutions, such as Sheather's sugar (sucrose) solution, are more efficient for centrifugation. Most salt solutions dry very quickly, crystallizing on slides and obscuring observation.
4. Centrifugation. Centrifugation of sieved feces may be performed in flotation solution either with a coverslip placed on top of a filled tube or with the coverslip added after the centrifuge has stopped. In the latter case, the tube is spun near-full, and then the tube is filled to form a reverse meniscus, the coverslip is added, and the tube is allowed to sit a few minutes longer. Centrifugation with the coverslip on the tube works best when a sugar flotation medium is used. Alternate methods for sampling the reverse meniscus include loops or glass rods that can be flamed between samples; however, this approach is less efficient than centrifuging with the coverslip in place.
5. Slide examination. The entire area under the coverslip should be examined. It is helpful to focus on a small air bubble to obtain the correct focal plane. The edge of the coverslip can be sealed with nail polish to prevent drying and to allow examination of the specimen under oil immersion. Sucrose preparations can be stored in high humidity in a refrigerator for hours to days without significantly altering the morphology of most common helminth eggs.

Although routine fecal examination should always include centrifugation, at times, other examination methods are needed to reach a diagnosis. For example, motile trophozoites and nematode larvae can be observed using the direct smear method. Certain nematode, trematode, and tapeworm eggs will not float in less dense flotation solutions and are better demonstrated using sedimentation. The Baermann funnel method may aid in diagnosis of a feline lungworm (Aelurostrongylus abstrusus) infection. Stained direct smears are useful for diagnosis of a protozoal infection such as giardiasis or trichomoniasis. Specimens to be examined for protozoa can first be fixed using a commercial fixative such as Proto-fix™ or a fixating stain such as MIF (merthiolate-iodine-formalin). Fecal antigen detection tests are useful for diagnosis of giardiasis and cryptosporidiosis.

A “fecal” may seem like one of the more humble tasks performed in a veterinary hospital. That does not diminish the importance of this examination, which can provide valuable information on the health status of veterinary patients. VetMedTeam and CAPC have worked together to create a free, RACE- approved, online CE course titled Focus on Fecal Diagnostics. Click here or on the icon to the left for more information.

CAPC has partnered with LIFELEARN to develop three People Pets & Parasites programs, authored by Bowman and Lucio-Forster and sponsored by CAPC. These three courses are:

• Fleas & Ticks: Accredited for 1 hour of CE
• Heartworm: Accredited for 1 hour of CE
• Intestinal Parasites: Accredited for 2 hours of CE

Click here or on the icon above for more information and access to these courses.

Click on these links to get the reference you need:

Canine Heartworm Testing Recommendations

Feline Heartworm Testing Recommendations