PEOPLE can become infected with a worm that causes blindness simply by stroking the coats of dogs that carry the parasite.
The finding challenges previous assumptions that the worms only spread to people who come into contact with dog faeces, and suggests that owners need to be extra vigilant in washing and worming their pets.
In the US, around 10,000 people a year, mainly children under 12, become infected with Toxocara canis, a nematode worm that grows up to 20 centimetres long in the intestines of dogs. In Britain the risk seems to be lower: “Fewer than 20 people a…
