The American Heartworm Society is the leading resource on heartworm disease, and our mission is to lead the veterinary profession and the public in the understanding of this serious disease. Every year, hundreds of stories are written on the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of heartworm, as well as on the plight of affected pets. These stories are an important way of reaching both veterinary professionals and pet owners with information they need to know about heartworm disease.
The American Heartworm Society is led by a board of directors comprised of veterinarians and specialists in the fields of veterinary parasitology and internalmedicine. As leaders in the fight against heartworm disease, they are available as resources and authors of related stories.
Members of the media are encouraged to contact the American Heartworm Society for information, visuals and interviews about heartworm disease. Please contact Sue O’Brien at Obriensuek@gmail.com. This email is for media inquiries only. All other inquiries, please email: info@heartwormsociety.org.
When using antigen and antibody tests, veterinarians need to be aware of their shortcomings
By Tom Nelson, DVM
Heartworm disease is an elusive diagnosis in feline patients. As such, a thorough understanding of the pathogenesis of feline heartworm disease (FHWD) is needed to interpret test results.
How heartworm disease differs in cats and dogs
Cats become infected with heartworms in much the same way as dogs. However, while cats are susceptible hosts, they differ significantly from dogs in the number of infective heartworm larvae that survive to adulthood.
American Heartworm Society provides guidance on heartworm protocols during COVID-19 crisis
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE—The COVID-19 crisis has created unprecedented disruptions in veterinary practices and animal shelters, making it challenging for many professionals to deliver wellness care, as well as certain medical treatments, to patients. As veterinary practices and animal shelters strive to provide the best possible care for their patients, questions frequently arise about heartworm prevention, testing and treatment.
While telemedicine is proving a lifeline for many hospitals during the current crisis, it doesn’t allow for routine heartworm testing and the administration of certain medications.
To address these issues, the American Heartworm Society (AHS) issued new recommendations to help hospitals and shelters better manage heartworm treatment at a time when many have cancelled routine wellness visits, or, worse, closed their doors for the short term.
NEWStat reached out to American Heartworm Society President Chris Duke, DVM, to find out more about the recommendations.
Conditions under which a veterinarian can delay annual heartworm tests during the COVID crisis is just one of the topics covered in new recommendations released by the American Heartworm Society (AHS).
Heartworm management is a cornerstone of pet health care, but the need to reduce the risk of the COVID-19 virus has led to changes in how veterinary visits are conducted. Here’s the latest recommendations for veterinarians from the American Heartworm Society.
The COVID-19 crisis has created unprecedented disruptions in veterinary practices and animal shelters, making it challenging for many professionals to deliver wellness care, as well as certain medical treatments, to patients.
As veterinary practices and animal shelters strive to provide the best possible care for their patients, questions frequently arise about heartworm prevention, testing and treatment.
The Heartworm Hotline column is presented in partnership between Today’s Veterinary Practice and the American Heartworm Society (heartwormsociety.org). The goal of the column is to communicate practical and timely information on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heartworm disease, as well as highlight current topics related to heartworm research and findings in veterinary medicine.
Heartworm disease prevalence, pathology, and management protocols headlined the 16th American Heartworm Society (AHS) Triennial Symposium, held September 8-11, 2019, in New Orleans. Given the challenges heartworm disease continues to present to the veterinary profession, discovering new strategies for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment is vital to reducing its impact.
An unprecedented 62 speakers and poster presenters were featured in the symposium, focusing on topics that included:
Heartworm vectors and transmission
Heartworm prevention
Heartworm pathology
Heartworm diagnosis
Wolbachia and heartworm treatment protocols
Following are brief, question-and-answer summaries of presentations on these topics at the 2019 symposium.
These abstracts were published in the proceedings of the 16th Triennial Symposium: Understanding Heartworm Disease: From Science to Solutions, available to American Heartworm Society members at heartwormsociety.org/proceedings-archive. Several abstracts have been published (see Published Abstracts). Many of these abstracts will appear in an upcoming special edition of Parasites and Vectors.
The Heartworm Hotline column is presented in partnership between Today’s Veterinary Practice and the American Heartworm Society (heartwormsociety.org). The goal of the column is to communicate practical and timely information on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heartworm disease, as well as highlight current topics related to heartworm research and findings in veterinary medicine.
Every three years, the American Heartworm Society (AHS) releases new data on the incidence of the parasite’s dreaded disease in pets. And right now is when the organization is asking for your help to get the best sample size to analyze.
Veterinarians now have the opportunity to submit their clinics’ data for the 2019 AHS Heartworm Incidence Survey. Options include filling out a printed survey that was mailed to veterinarians in late January (the completed survey can be scanned and emailed to the AHS) or simply completing the survey at heartwormsociety.org/2019survey. The deadline to submit survey data is Feb. 29, 2020.
Have you ever walked out of an exam room and wanted to bang your head against a wall? (Hand raise, right here!). Stubborn clients, whiners, complainers and those who think they know more than you are by among the most frustrating issues veterinary teams deal with on a daily basis. Can I get an amen?
But know this: You will never make everyone happy. I repeat, you will never make everyone happy. (I’m repeating this for myself, too!)
The days are getting shorter, the nights are cooler, leaves are starting to turn, and football season is here. But that doesn’t mean your clients can forget about protecting their pets from heartworms.
To keep this message front and center with your clients, we’re sharing a set of new posters you can print OR post on your Facebook or Instagram page.
To save or print a poster, just click on the image below, then click on the “download” button and save the PDF file.
To save a poster for use on your social pages, simply open the downloaded poster, then right click on the file and follow the menu instructions to save the file as a JPEG image.
