SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Hawaii Warns Tourists of Parasitic Worm that can Burrow into Human Brains:
Hawaii's health department has released fresh warnings about a parasitic worm that can infest human brains after officials confirmed that three more visitors to the state picked up the infection.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed three new cases in unrelated adults visiting Hawaii Island from the US mainland, the health department announced. The latest known victims—who became infected at different times—bring the state's 2018 case total to 10 and the 2019 total to five.
While there were 17 confirmed cases in 2017, the state counted only two cases total in the prior decade. The new case counts indicate a sustained boom in the parasite's population and spread.
The parasitic worm in these cases is the rat lungworm, aka Angiostrongylus cantonensis. As its common name suggests, the wandering worm primarily takes up residence in rats' lungs, where female worms lay their eggs. Young worms leave the nest early to find their own windy homes, though. Larvae get coughed up into rats' throats then swallowed. The hosting rat eventually poops out the young parasites, which then get gobbled up by feces-feasting snails and slugs (intermediate hosts). When other rodents come along and eat those infected mollusks, the prepubescent parasites migrate to the rats' brains to mature before settling into the lungs and reproducing. The cycle then starts again.
Eww, that sounds gross! So, what happens if I should, by chance, get infected?
[...] In humans, young worms make their way to the brain as they would in a rat. But the rambling invaders rarely survive long enough to make it to their final destination in the lungs. Instead, they usually die somewhere in the central nervous system. In some cases, the infection is symptomless and resolves on its own. In others, the worm meanders around the brain, and its presence, movement, and death in the central nervous system all contribute to symptoms. Those can vary wildly but sometimes include headaches, neck stiffness, tingling or pain, low-grade fever, nausea, and vomiting. In severe cases, the infection can lead to nerve damage, paralysis, coma, and even death.
In short: be sure to clean all produce thoroughly and avoid eating any slugs.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @09:54AM (3 children)
1. I doubt people will eat those slugs (raw). This is the way of infection in rats, not humans per se.
2. The most likely way of infection is through feaces contaminated materials and cleaning thoroughly could be rather difficult. All it needs is one microscopic small egg to survive.
3. Europe has something similar. There is this worm that normally infects rodens and foxes, but can transfer to dog and humans through contaminated sources in forests (berries, nuts, mushrooms, dead animals). It has similar symptoms in humans and can be lethal if not treated. It originates from around the alps, but is spreading northwards for a few decades now.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 31 2019, @12:13PM (1 child)
Europeans have plenty of rat-vectored disease experience, but the climate is quite different than a tropical Pacific island.
Slugs and snails can be quite small, and if the produce fields have rats, then they can spread the disease onto fruits and vegetables via the mollusk vector. All in all, it's easier to wash off rat poop than an attached leech or slug.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @02:09PM
> ...and if the produce fields have rats,
Sounds like you haven't been to the eastern side of the Big Island? We spent a week there with a friend in Hawaiian Paradise Park, south of Hilo. The rats were everywhere, one snuck into his house through a closet that didn't have complete baseboard moldings and chewed a big hole into a nylon backpack. Another came onto his lanai (2nd floor deck), we watched it walk along the power wires to the house. There's no "if" about rats in that area, they are everywhere.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday May 31 2019, @04:29PM
You apparently missed this nice tidbit at the end of the arstechnica piece.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/hawaii-warns-tourists-of-parasitic-worm-that-can-burrow-into-human-brains/ [arstechnica.com]
Also, in Australia a young man ate a slug, got infected, and died 8 years later due to problems directly related to the infection.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/11/05/young-rugby-player-ate-slug-mates-dare-now-hes-dead/?utm_term=.d11fba594ee7 [washingtonpost.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"