Scratching surface on Alberta swimmer's itch spread

A public health team at the University of Alberta is asking for the publics help to figure out why an infection known as swimmer's itch is spreading across the province.

Patrick Hanington and his researchers have found that snails responsible for transmitting the condition are in 65 Canadian lakes, with one-third in Alberta.

Haningtons team wants to know where and when people are getting infected, so theyve set up a websiteswimmersitch.ca to collect reports.

"What were trying to do is give people a pre-warning system so that they can know when theres been outbreaks in each of these different lakes in Alberta and throughout Canada, so they can get an idea of when theyre maybe safe to swim and when its not," he said.

Humans are able to fend off the parasites, but the immune response is what causes the itchy rash.

"Thats you killing the parasite thats trying to get into you," Hanington said.

The itch can last for as long as two weeks. People can also get secondary infections from scratching too much.

Pigeon Lake and Buffalo Lake, both within a two-hour's drive south of Edmonton, have the most reports of swimmer's itch on Hanington's website.