Is swine flu dangerous: Need to understand correctly to avoid panic

This is an automatically translated article.

The article was professionally consulted by Master, Doctor Nguyen Thi Nhat - Infectious Disease Specialist - Department of Medical Examination & Internal Medicine - Vinmec Hai Phong International General Hospital
Patients infected with tapeworms potentially face the risk of brain and eye damage, coma, hallucinations, and even death. If the meat is contaminated with tapeworms but has been cooked, the risk of infection is very rare.

1. Why are people infected with tapeworms?

Tapeworm infection, or rice fluke, is a parasitic disease capable of infecting animals and humans. The main cause of the disease is from eating pork carrying tapeworm larvae or eating food contaminated with eggs from human feces. In particular, pigs play the role of an intermediate host that transmits the disease to humans.
The risk of contracting pork tapeworm is closely related to eating habits, including eating raw and undercooked pork (the custom of drinking blood pudding, spring rolls, spring rolls...) and the source of this pork. accidentally contains cysts of rice pork fluke. In addition, people who have a habit of eating undercooked food, raw vegetables, unwashed fruits and vegetables, and unboiled water are more likely to be infected with tapeworm eggs.

2. Is swine flu infection dangerous?

Ingesting tapeworm contaminated pork can lead to a tapeworm infection. However, it should be understood that the risk of infection with tapeworm depends on whether the ability of the fluke to cause disease is still present or not. Specifically, if the meat has flukes and larvae but has been thoroughly cooked, then if people eat it, there is no risk of causing disease.
On the other hand, if eating habits or processing conditions are not guaranteed, leading to uncooked pork infected with fluke, after people eat or swallow, the eggs will enter the stomach and hatch. fluke larvae. Larvae move to the small intestine, through the wall of the digestive tract, into the blood, then in the blood move to the skeletal muscles, brain, eyes... and begin to parasitize there and then become cysts.
Depending on the parasitic location of the cyst, the body will have different manifestations and levels of danger. In case the pork tapeworm cyst is located in the muscle, you will notice that there are abnormally small, hard, recessed tumors under the skin, but can move when we touch it, about 1-2 cm in size, do not cause itching, no pain. pain, located in the striated muscle.
If the cyst moves to and parasitizes the brain, the patient is likely to have convulsions, seizures, paralysis of the arms, legs or hemiplegia, slurred speech, memory loss or severe headache. When cysts appear in the eye, it can lead to glaucoma, decreased vision or even blindness.

In the case of adult tapeworms in the intestines, they begin to bud, produce new nodes from the neck, and then produce thousands of new tapeworms, each with about 50,000 eggs, resulting in a length of adult tapeworm capable of reaching adulthood. capacity up to 2-12 m. Their development cycle can last for many years and there are no obvious symptoms. Clinically, patients often feel uncomfortable, restless.
In addition, in a few cases, when observing in the stool, it is possible to detect eggs or tapeworms that fall out spontaneously in the feces (the segments of pork tapeworm are usually small, flattened, ivory-white fibrous segments. jackfruit, flat head, recognizable to the naked eye).
Dangerous swine flu infection is no longer due to the time of infection and the time of treatment. Because tapeworm infections often do not have any typical signs or symptoms, nor do they cause fever, most people with schistosomiasis do not seek medical attention and treatment. Consequences lead to long-term infection with swine flu, causing health deterioration, digestive disorders, the body gradually becomes emaciated and exhausted.

3. Proper treatment and prevention of swine tapeworm disease

Usually, when detecting a tapeworm infection, the patient needs medical treatment (using drugs to kill the tapeworm). In case the tapeworm causes nerve compression, causes embolism, dilatation of the ventricles or water retention in the brain, the patient needs to perform surgery.
Actively prevent rice fluke infection by keeping the environment clean and managing waste well. In daily life, it is necessary to use clean water sources, especially in remote areas where the demand for clean water is quite limited. Besides, food hygiene and safety is extremely important in preventing swine tapeworm disease. It is necessary to eat and drink boiled water (water must be boiled, cooled, and then used directly). Absolutely do not eat pork and pork products (teeth soup, spring rolls) uncooked, stay away from rice pork and limit eating raw vegetables.
Proactively preventing infection with tapeworm for yourself is also a way to prevent infection for relatives, family and people living in the same area.

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