Author: Leah Rosenbaum / Source: Science News
When a 78-year-old woman went to a hospital in Guangzhou, China, in November 2012 complaining of a headache, drowsiness and a stiff neck, doctors initially were puzzled.
The patient had meningitis, but no signs of bacteria or viruses that can cause the illness. Then a cerebrospinal fluid test revealed she had a high number of white blood cells called eosinophils, a clue that she was fighting a parasitic infection. That helped the doctors zero in on a culprit: a thin, swirly-patterned worm called Angiostrongylus cantonensis. The woman was suffering from rat lungworm disease. So was her adult son.But how were the pair infected? Rat lungworm disease, which gets its name from the fact that the worm eggs hatch in the lungs of rats, is commonly associated with ingesting snails or slugs (SN Online: 7/21/16). Infected rats poop out the worm larvae, which the mollusks can then pick up and pass on to humans if eaten. Yet the patients had eaten no slugs or snails.
An investigation of the pair’s diet revealed they had eaten Chinese red-headed centipedes…
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