Treatment/Transmission of hookworms

Well, Cally has hookworms, and as this is something I have not handled before, I thought I would come to you lovely people for advice!

How easy is it to transmit hookworms from animal to animal or to people? Cally gets her first dose of Drontal today (I'm hoping she likes tuna so I can mix the pill in with some) and another dose in three weeks to kill any migrating worms that were missed by the first dose. Does she need to stay away from the boys until that time, or will it not be transmitted cat to cat that easily?

As for me, am I going to actually have to come into contact with her feces to be able to be infected by them, or could litter box/scoop/carpet contamination be a concern? I mean, should I be wearing gloves when I scoop her box? I'm a science major, I'm sure I've got some around.

Also, does hand sanitizer kill worms/worm eggs? Sheesh, you'd think I could come up with some of this - I work on a nematode species in my lab, and hookworms are a species of nematode. But very different species - mine aren't parasites! But now I almost wonder what they look like under a scope...I should have asked the vet if I could take a look!

Thanks for the advice!

Wash your hands after scooping poop. Don't touch your face with "dirty litterbox" hands. You should be fine then.

Some vets say they can be transmitted via feces from one cat to another. Some vets say no, it can't happen.

Originally Posted by white cat lover

Wash your hands after scooping poop. Don't touch your face with "dirty litterbox" hands. You should be fine then.

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People should do this anyways. But you have to wonder who out there doesn't....


Can you scuff Cally? If so it's a lot easier to spend 20 seconds or so popping a pill in the back of her mouth than it is hoping she'd eat it in a food and get the full dose.

Originally Posted by strange_wings

People should do this anyways. But you have to wonder who out there doesn't....

Can you scuff Cally? If so it's a lot easier to spend 20 seconds or so popping a pill in the back of her mouth than it is hoping she'd eat it in a food and get the full dose.

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She won't let me near her enough to try to pop it in her mouth. I'd be chasing her all over the room and we probably still wouldn't get it done.

If tuna doesn't work (and I would be a bit surprised if it didn't) I'll pick up some baby food on my way back into the lab and try it tonight.



I tend to just hand sanitizer my hands after litter box duty - for one of the labs I teach I did a little experiment to see which was more effective, and found that the hand sanitizer was much more effective at eliminating bacteria than hand washing with antibacterial soap. Taught me to try and remember to wash my hands for longer.

Originally Posted by white cat lover

Wash your hands after scooping poop. Don't touch your face with "dirty litterbox" hands. You should be fine then.

Some vets say they can be transmitted via feces from one cat to another. Some vets say no, it can't happen.

Click to expand...

Thanks Nat. I'll probably keep them mostly isolated from each other for now, and just have short, supervised visits. It will probably take about that long for everyone to be really comfortable with each other and with me anyways, even if they're pretty cordial now. It will just force us to take it a little slower, which won't hurt anything.

Originally Posted by Sandtigress

I tend to just hand sanitizer my hands after litter box duty - for one of the labs I teach I did a little experiment to see which was more effective, and found that the hand sanitizer was much more effective at eliminating bacteria than hand washing with antibacterial soap. Taught me to try and remember to wash my hands for longer.

Click to expand...

As I said elsewhere - If you get kitty poo on your hands and only use a hand sanitizer you still have kitty poo on your hands. It may be sanitized but...

Originally Posted by strange_wings

As I said elsewhere - If you get kitty poo on your hands and only use a hand sanitizer you still have kitty poo on your hands. It may be sanitized but...

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Haha, that's very true. If I actually touched kitty poo, you'd better believe I'd be washing my hands with soap and water! But I throw their scoops in when I clean out and sanitize the boxes, so I'm fairly confident they're okay.

Hi hi, another question about cat to cat hookworm transmission. I have a 15 year old cat who is worm free and a new kitten who has hookworms. Kitten just had her second dose of pyrantel on aug 5 (2 days ago). As of now, the two cats have never been in contact - one is with me, one is with my boyfriend. I'll be travelling for work and so it would be much easier to have them in the same home (where the kitten has been). We will disinfect the floors with bleach and keep the cats separated. They will have their own boxes. The kitten uses her box but has been on every surface in the apartment, and let's face it, cats track litter. How hardy are hookworms in an apartment? Do I need to be concerned about the older cat picking up worms from the bedding, sofas, etc? Due to apartment configuration, we wouldn't be able to separate the animals if kitten stayed where the older cat has been. Both cats are indoor only.