Dingo Problem
© The Courier Mail
Dingo doo-doo has been linked to a spike in medical cases of a deadly cystic parasite that has been found as big as a football in the liver and lungs of humans.

Scientists are investigating cases in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and Townsville, where wild dogs encroaching on urban sprawl have spread the potentially lethal hydatid disease into the human population.

"Dingo poo is not good stuff," Charles Sturt University lead researcher Dr David Jenkins said.

"You can lose chunks of the liver and a whole lung because major surgery is the only way to cut out these fluid-filled cysts."

He said the worry was that because it took 10 to 15 years before the cyst grew to an identifiable size, it was only the tip of human cases being reported.

"As there is more contact, we expect to see a bigger spike in cases," he said.

Australia, on average, has 100 new cases a year of hydatid disease caused by a tiny tapeworm, Echinococcus granulosus, passed from the gut of the wild dog into the environment.

There are 10 cases in Queensland yearly, with the latest victim a Sunshine Coast Regional Council worker, who contracted the disease in the trapping and control of dingoes near Maroochydore.

Dr Jenkins outlined his research as part of a three-day Australian Parasitology Conference with 200 fellow experts in Cairns this week.

"Wild dogs are getting more brazen and coming into towns, raiding garbage bins, eating and fighting with domestic pets and leaving behind dingo poo," he told The Courier-Mail.

"The eggs can stay alive for a year and are transmitted by inhaling, hand-mouth contact or from petting or kissing domestic pets.

"As wild dog behaviour changes, the risk to humans is getting bigger."

A New Zealand farmer had a 50kg cyst cut from his liver and lungs in the late 1940s in Otago.

Professor Peter O'Donoghue, of the University of Queensland, said the vast array of microscopic parasites was "pretty" and "horrific".

"We don't study them for innate beauty but the horrific effect they have on their hosts and the diseases they cause," he said.

"Most people know what a killer shark, crocodile, spider or stinger look like but these killer microbes are invisible to the naked eye and are even scarier because you can't see them and they get you in the gut, blood, skin tissue or organs."

He said a scientific team had also identified Leishmania, previously thought not to occur in Australia, in wild animals in the Top End where contact causes nasty skin ulcers with tropical sores.

In another case, scientists are investigating a recent outbreak of tapeworm in cows in a feedlot in northeast NSW, with 35 cattle euthanased. They warn that, if infected beef is improperly cooked, it can lead to a 9m-long tapeworm growing inside the gut of humans.