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Originally Posted by Phrozen Sands
Wait… CG, can you explain this for real, minus the jokes so I understand what you’re talking about? I’m paranoid about anything living inside me.
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lol
You sound about as bad as my husband.
Okay, all jokes aside. So, with Giardia, it can be transmitted between animals and humans. I mean, the risk of transmission from pets to humans is generally low. But Giardia duodenalis is the species that infects both animals and humans. It’s like made up of different genetic assemblages. Assemblages A and B are known to infect humans, while other assemblages are typically host specific to animals. When I speak of assemblages, I’m referring to distinct genetic groups within the species, from A-H, which exhibit different host specificities. If you want me to tell you what those are, I’ll be more than happy to. But anyway, while zoonotic transmission is possible, most Giardia infections are host specific, and direct transmission between pets and humans is uncommon.
With pinworms, they’re species specific. You can get them by not washing your hands. They spread through fecal-oral transmission. So, you’d have to ingest their eggs in order to get infected. So like, let’s say you’re at work, and someone (infected) you work with scratched their butt the night before without washing their hands, then shakes your hand or touches your mouse on your computer, then you touch your mouth after contact, you could swallow the eggs and get infected. The eggs can live on surfaces for like 2-3 weeks, so you should wipe down surfaces you come in contact with. The eggs cause severe itching around the anus which makes people scratch there, and then they spread it. I mean, they’re simple to get rid of, but it’s just better to not get them at all, because that’s really gross.