A foodborne disease caused by a microscopic parasite, Trichinella spiralis, acquired by eating the undercooked meat of infected animals, usually pork. The parasites spread throughout the body and become embedded in muscles, forming cysts, and provoking an inflammatory reaction. This leads to muscle pain and weakness accompanied by fever, profuse sweating, a rash, and swelling around the eyes. Involvement of the heart muscle can lead to cardiac failure and death. Prevention is by ensuring that food, particularly pork products, is properly cooked.
| ICD-9 | 124 |
|---|---|
| DiseasesDB | 13326 |
Trichinosis, also called trichinellosis, or trichiniasis, is a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork and wild game products infected with the larvae of a species of roundworm Trichinella spiralis, commonly called the trichina worm.
Signs and symptoms
Symptoms can be divided into two types: symptoms caused by worms in the intestine, and symptoms caused by worms elsewhere.
In the intestine, infection can cause:
Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue, fever, and abdominal discomfortLater, as the worms encyst in different parts of the body, other symptoms occur such as:
Headaches, fevers, chills, cough, eye swelling, aching joints and muscle pains, pinpoint hemorrhages, itchy skin, and heightened numbers of white blood cells.If worms penetrate nervous tissue, they cannot survive, but patients may experience difficulty coordinating movements and respiratory paralysis.
For mild to moderate infections, most symptoms subside within a few months.
Incubation time
Abdominal symptoms can occur 1–2 days after infection. Symptoms may range from very mild to severe and relate to the number of infectious worms consumed in meat, and the amount of meat consumed.
Life cycle
The worm can infect any species of mammal that consumes its encysted larval stages. When an animal eats meat that contains infective Trichinella cysts, the acid in the stomach dissolves the hard covering of the cyst and releases the worms.
Screening for compounds active against Trichinella
(1) An in vitro screening test for compounds active against the parenteral stages of Trichinella spiralis.
Tropenmed Parasitol. (Jenkins DC, Carrington TS.)
A new in vitro screening test for compounds showing activity against the tissue stages of Trichinella spiralis is described Freshly decapsulated larvae of the parasite are exposed to low concentrations of experimental compound in a medium capable of supporting the partial development of the worms.
(2) Trichinella pseudospiralis as a model for the "in vitro" screening of anthelmintics. (Gomez-Barrio A, Bolas-Fernandez F, Martinez-Fernandez AR.)
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Diagnosis
A blood test or muscle biopsy can identify trichinosis.
Treatment
Symptoms can be treated with aspirin and corticosteroids.
Epidemiology
Trichinosis was known as early as 1835 to have been caused by a parasite, but the mechanism of infection was unclear at the time.
Infection was once very common, but is now quite rare in the developed world. The number of cases has decreased because of legislation prohibiting the feeding of raw meat garbage to hogs, increased commercial and home freezing of pork, and the public awareness of the danger of eating raw or undercooked pork products. Today, one of the primary causes of trichinosis in America is the consumption of raw or undercooked wild game meats.
In the developing world, most infections are associated with undercooked pork.
It has been suggested that trichinosis may be one of several factors that lead to religious prohibitions against eating pork products, such as in the kashrut dietary laws.
Prevention
Cooking meat products until the juices run clear or to an internal temperature of 144 °F (62 °C). Freezing wild game meats, unlike freezing pork products, even for long periods of time, may not effectively kill all worms.Curing (salting), drying, smoking, or microwaving meat does not consistently kill infective worms.
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