Is the sushi boom promoting the spread of tapeworm infection?

Recently, more and more people have started eating raw fish, and so there have been disgusting stories of tapeworms. But do sashimi fans really need to worry - and what other ways are there to get infected?

According to A&E doctor, Kenny Bunn, there is good news: the patient who requested an ambulance did not die. This is the only thing that Bunn, a California hospital employee, said in This Won’t Hurt a Bit, a medical podcast, about a man who came to the hospital with a plastic bag. In the bag, wrapped in a cardboard roll of toilet paper, was a 1.7m long tapeworm. Bunn measured it when it landed on the hospital floor.

The patient complained of abdominal pain. During an attack of bloody diarrhea, according to Bunn, the patient noticed that part of the intestine was hanging out of him. Of course, the first thought that comes to his mind is that he is dying ... The patient grabs it, pulls it, and the intestine continues to come out. "What's that long inside?" He picks her up, looks at her ... and what does she do? A dramatic pause for soulful horror. She starts to move.

According to Bann, the tapeworm probably came from taking daily salmon sashimi. “He said he was scared, but I think when you think you’re dying, because your insides are coming out of your buttocks, and it turns out to be something else, it’s not so bad.”

The story attracted attention from all over the world, as it always does. According to Peter Olson, a tapeworm expert and researcher in the Department of Biomedical Research at the Museum of Natural History, this always happens because stories like these are hideous. According to him, this worm must have been something called the "broad tapeworm." "You can pick it up just with the help of salmon, if you don't process the meat." In the life of a broad tapeworm, there is always more than one owner. “A typical life cycle might include a bear that feeds on salmon and then defecates back into the river. The larvae remain in the environment and, if they remain, for example, in water, they can be eaten by crayfish. When a fish eats a cancer, the worm turns into a larval - and thus gets to humans. Once in the gut, it can grow into a giant worm. "

The tapeworm is a monstrous and impressive creature. It has a segmented body, male and female genital organs in each segment, so that the worm is capable of self-fertilization. It does not have a head as such - its "head" is useful only to catch on to the host's alimentary canal, but not to "feed" (the worm absorbs nutrients through the skin). In most cases, it is impossible to know that you are infected. Small pieces of tapeworm can be seen in the stool - small, pale, like grains of rice. In some cases, abdominal pain and vomiting are observed.

Of the 10,000 known tapeworm species, only a few can infect humans. The tapeworm that can enter the body from sushi or poorly cooked fish is extremely unpleasant but relatively harmless - although it can cause gastritis symptoms and allergies. In rare cases, it can take up the entire intestine (the worm can reach a length of 15 or even 25 meters, according to some scientific newspaper). It is treated quite simply: with the same pills against worms that are prescribed to pets.

In such cases, Olson notes coolly, the person becomes the "last boss." Only in those cases when a person is an "intermediate" owner can we talk about serious damage.“The problem is that the larvae don't grow in the gut - they move to other parts of the body. For example, the central nervous system, ”explains Olson. They can cause cysts in the brain, seizures and headaches. Some cases can be fatal.

Transmission is far more likely through faecal matter than through poorly cooked meat, he says. “In places like Central America, this is a huge problem because there is a big pork business and a lot of pig farms. The poorer the sanitary conditions, the higher the chance of transmission, ”says Olsen. Tapeworm infection is considered the third most common cause of epilepsy in the region.

The fox tapeworm, transmitted through the feces of foxes, is another type of parasite pest. However, while it is in Europe, it is not in the UK. People can get it only by accidentally swallowing it. "Therefore, the likelihood that a child will be infected is much higher." Can you get infected from pets? "Again, only through feces." Olson recalls an incident when it was said that a patient was infected by a dog. However, he turned out to be HIV-positive and his immune system was weakened. The tapeworm “would not have survived if its immunity was in order. More often than not, we do not accept the same parasites [as dogs], but they can infect from the street. "

In another case, it was about a patient with HIV with a preliminary cancer diagnosis. However, biopsies of the tumors showed that these were not human cells, but cells of a carcinoid worm (he died before he could be cured). He was infected with Hymenolepsis nana, a common parasite that infects up to 75 million people at one time. It is easy to cure such an infection, but this case vividly illustrates the serious consequences it can lead to, especially in those places where mortality from HIV is high.

These are cases when the poor part of the population fell ill. These diseases can be eradicated by investing in sanitation, education and management - WHO has already added tapeworm to the list of the most dangerous tropical diseases.