To prevent echinococcosis, care must be taken to reduce risk factors.
Risk factors of alveolar echinococcosis
Behavioral risk factors
- Direct contact with infected animals (fur).
- Smear infection
- Work with contaminated soil
- Infection through contaminated water and contaminated food is questionable
Risk factors of cystic echinococcosis
Behavioral risk factors
- Direct contact with infected animals (fur).
- Smear infection
- Work with contaminated soil
- Consumption of contaminated food
Primary prevention
- For jam made from collected wild berries: wash and boil well (fox tapeworm eggs die at 60 °C).
- Killing the eggs is possible by brief boiling or freezing for several days at minus 80 degrees.
- Aside: picking berries or mushrooms has not been identified as a risk factor in any study. This is not surprising, since one would have to ingest several hundred eggs of the fox tapeworm to become infected.