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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: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @09:18AM (9 children)
Congrats, runaway, you survived, you poor rambling bastard.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @09:42AM (8 children)
Actually, infection is not necessarily fatal, at least not immediately. Symptoms include a tingling or "electric" feeling, ringing in the ears, excessive viewing of Fox News (dead give away in Democratic Hawaii), and an aversion to water, liberals, or other reflective surfaces. And, Runaway does seem to be the kind of person to eat a slug on dare!
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @09:53AM (7 children)
Somehow, I don't think the infection could have changed much in our Runaway.
Except maybe for the tinnitus.
You hear me, Runaway?... Let me try again: do you still hear me?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @10:04AM (6 children)
Shhh! I think he is asleep again. Do rat lung worms dream of lung worm sheep?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @01:11PM (5 children)
Wow, a spam mod. Whatsa matter, snowflake, you tired of freedom of speech already?
Or you like eth-fuelled ramblings on jews better than a reference to one of the greatest SciFi authors? Wasn't this site meant to be Scientific and Technical, or is that only a piece of fiction? C'm'on, admit it, you aren't a white man enough for this site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @03:00PM (4 children)
Wow! Half a page of people obsessing on one member! "Due to excessive bad posting from your IP address, you are banned from earth for the next 12 centuries. Sorry, a mere millenia just wasn't enough."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @03:16PM (3 children)
Better than obsessing on muslims, dontcha think? Or jews. Or Mexicans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @04:36PM (2 children)
Or alt-right?
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @07:03PM (1 child)
Or alt-right Mexican Jews that eat their way into your brain with dank memes?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday June 01 2019, @06:30AM
Shhh! He's still asleep!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @09:50AM (2 children)
Life imitates art, once again.
Walking alone through the corridors of $BASENAME, you skim the security reports on recent attacks by the horrific native "mind worms." Giant swarms, or "boils," of these mottled 10cm nightmares have wriggled out of the fungal beds of late, and now threaten to overwhelm base perimeters in several sectors. Victims are paralyzed with psi-induced terror, and then experience an unimaginably excruciating death as the worms burrow into the brain to implant their ravenous larvae.
Only the most disciplined security squads can overcome their fear long enough to trigger the flame guns which can keep the worms at bay. Clearly you will have to tend carefully to the morale of the troops.
-- Sid Meier's ALPHA CENTAURI
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday May 31 2019, @04:23PM (1 child)
You got that backwards. Art imitates Life. Unless for some reason, you're saying that a worm saw someone playing Sid Meier's Alpha Cenaturi, and decided/evolved to infect someone's brain as a result.
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"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 01 2019, @12:17PM
Not me. FYI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imitating_art [wikipedia.org]
(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.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(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"
(Score: 2) by ewk on Friday May 31 2019, @11:55AM (1 child)
or rats :-)
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @01:04PM
And stop licking cats, you never know what they've eaten.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday May 31 2019, @01:33PM
> In severe cases, the infection can lead to nerve damage, paralysis, coma, and even death.
Wow, someone was so desperate to get the cure completion rate down that he went ALL the way up the "Brain Haemorrhage" branch of the symptom tree.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Friday May 31 2019, @03:32PM (2 children)
Several dozen members of Congress, along with several Cabinet secretaries, were also exposed to this dangerous creature, but the brain slugs didn't find anything to eat so they left them unharmed.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday May 31 2019, @04:20PM
And this just in.... all 32 members who have the disease will be running for office as soon as the helminths have finished their work.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 31 2019, @06:26PM
BrainDead was a documentary! [wikipedia.org]
I thought that show was pretty funny, shame they cancelled it.