The case of the ringworm...

It had only been three days at BAWA and I contracted ringworm on my arm. This was most likely from one of the copious amount of puppies that need to be treated in the morning. A good percentage of them had lesions on their skin...focal areas of hair loss...broken hairs... that might represent a ringworm infection...on their face and bodies. Even though I washed my hands and arms thoroughly afterwards, it was still inevitable considering the 2 hours of handling in the hot moist weather.

Ringworm is not actually a worm but a dermatophyte...a type of fungus. This lovely organism likes to feed off the hair in your follicles and grows outward through the skin reaching new hair creating a some what circular pattern. It can be quite itchy. Treatment consists of an antifungal such as ketoconazole. It is such a common thing to see in a facility with a large amount of animals closely housed together as it is contagious and some species are zoonotic. It could be a big problem and hard to get rid of on a herd-based level because of its ability to spread. But it is so hard to control in these situations since their is little room to quarantine. Therefore it is treated as needed; some infections are self limiting as immunity of puppies increases. The pups can be separated and treated if really bad.

Puppy with ringworm

Theses guys have been separated from the rest since ringworm was worse.

As for me, this was my first time with ringworm...and I had a little freakout being in a foreign country and all.  While in town, I somehow found a Medical Docktor place where a nurse was able to get me ketoconazole for 35000.00 Rp (about 3.20 USD).