Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Oct 30:5:245.
doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-5-245.

Key factors influencing canine heartworm, Dirofilaria immitis, in the United States

Heidi E Brown  1 , Laura C Harrington, Phillip E Kaufman, Tanja McKay, Dwight D Bowman, C Thomas Nelson, Dongmei Wang, Robert Lund
Affiliations

Key factors influencing canine heartworm, Dirofilaria immitis, in the United States

Heidi E Brown et al. Parasit Vectors. .

Abstract

An examination of the Companion Animal Parasite Council's (CAPC) canine heartworm data to clarify the spatial prevalence of heartworm in the United States. Factors thought to influence the spatial risk of disease, as identified in a recent CAPC workshop, are discussed.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Spatially smoothed proportions of positive canine heartworm-antigen tests recorded by US veterinarians in 2011. The figure summarizes 4,769,403 tests performed by veterinarians for circulating heartworm antigen in the US in 2011; of these tests, 56,612 tests (1.187%) were positive. The population studied is those dogs that are seen by a veterinarian and are tested; about 5% of owned dogs in the US. The map displays probabilities of a positive test after smoothing by the head-banging algorithm (see text for details). The figure is made by assigning the smoothed proportions to nine color-coded categories [0.00,0.03], (0.03,0.06], . . .,(0.21,0.24], and (0.24, 1.00]. The colors range from dark green for the lower proportions to bright red for higher proportions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. CAPC Parasite Prevalence Maps Heartworm. 2011. http://www.capcvet.org/parasite-prevalence-maps.
    1. Bowman DD, Little SE, Lorentzen L, Shields J, Sullivan MP, Carlin EP. Prevalence and geographic distribution of Dirofilaria immitis, Borrelia burgdorferi, Ehrlichia canis, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum in dogs in the United States: results of a national clinic-based serologic survey. Vet Parasitol. 2009;160:138–48. doi: 10.1016/j.vetpar.2008.10.093. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Guerrero J, Nelson CT, Carithers DS. Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists. Honolulu; 2006. Results and realistic implications of the 2004 AHS-Merial heartworm survey. July 15–18, 2006, Abstract 63.
    1. Atkins CE. Comparison of results of three commercial heartworm antigen test kits in dogs with low heartworm burdens. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2003;222:1221–23. doi: 10.2460/javma.2003.222.1221. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Frank GR, Grieve RB, Mok M, Smart DJ, Salman MD. In: Proceedings of the heartworm symposium '92, Austin, Texas, USA, 27–29 March, 1992. Soll MD, Batavia IL, editor. 1992. Survey of heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis) infection in Colorado dogs: a model for surveying prevalence in low-endemic areas; pp. 5–10.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources