Are young children infected with swine tapeworms dangerous?

According to the World Health Organization, nearly one-third of swine tapeworm infections can cause epilepsy. Not only that, this type of fluke can also suck nutrients from the body, causing infected children to become stunted, slow to grow and often suffer from digestive diseases.

Risk of seizures, blindness if infected with swine tapeworm

Swine fluke infection, also known as swine fluke infection, is an infectious disease of the tissue caused by the larvae of the swine fluke (swine tapeworm, pig tapeworm). Rice flukes are small, slightly round, about 1 mm in diameter, about 2-3 meters long, or up to 12 meters in length. Mostly, human infections are caused by ingestion of tapeworm eggs or swine tapeworm larvae.

After eating the tapeworm eggs, the eggs will enter the stomach and intestines, hatching the larvae. Mostly, this type of larvae usually parasitizes in the small intestine. However, sometimes swine fluke larvae can go "misplaced" when penetrating the gastrointestinal tract into the bloodstream and moving to the parasite in organs such as brain, muscle, subcutaneous tissue, eyes ...

Depending on the location of the parasitic cyst, young children may experience health problems such as:

If the hydatid cyst is parasitic in the brain: Children may suffer from epilepsy , paralysis, lisp, consciousness disorders, severe headaches, memory impairments, affecting learning. Even more serious can lead to parasitic meningitis.

If the cyst is parasitic in the eye: People with this condition may experience glaucoma, decreased vision, or blindness.

If the hydatid cyst is parasitized in the muscle: On the child's skin, small, firm tumors will appear, about 1-2 cm in size or equal to peanuts, peanuts, no itching and painless.

If the flukes make a nest in the heart: Children may have heart arrhythmia, affect the heart valves, leading to heart failure .

Not only that, this type of worms can be up to 12 meters long, constantly discarding old burning containing a lot of eggs and producing new burning so they can absorb all nutrients from the body they are parasitic. Therefore, children infected with swine fluke will be more susceptible to malnutrition, anemia, emaciation, sickness and digestive problems.

Symptoms of swine fluke infection in young children

The cases of swine fluke infection often do not show many obvious signs, some children have clinical manifestations such as:

Abdominal pain: Because the fluke attaches to the intestinal wall and affects this area.

Nausea and vomiting: This is a fairly common symptom, and if the larvae mature, this symptom will become even more severe.

Weight loss: Because tapeworms absorb all nutrients of the body for growth.

In addition to the more common symptoms above, your child may experience symptoms such as:

Diarrhea

Fever

If the fluke is large, burning it can come out in the stool or the fluke crawls out through the anus.

Treatment of swine tapeworm infections in children

If infected with adult fluke, children only need to take the drug 1 day to recover. However, if infected with helminth larvae, treatment time will be longer, about 2 weeks or can last 4-5 times, one wave needs about 21 days. If the fluke is parasitic in the brain, muscle, or other organs, your doctor may prescribe surgery to remove the hydatid cyst.

Prevention of swine fluke infections in young children

Swine fluke infection is not a dangerous disease if it is treated promptly, but if it is left for a long time, the disease can cause many complications. To protect children from the risk of this disease, you should proactively take the following preventive measures:

When buying pork, you should choose to buy at reputable, quality places, observe carefully the meat, do not buy meat if there are doubts or the meat has unusual signs.

Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before preparing food for children and the whole family, after going to the toilet or toileting for children ...

During the processing, you should cook the meat thoroughly, do not give your child raw foods such as spring rolls, raw pork, raw vegetables, blood soup ... After processing is complete, you should thoroughly clean the tools. contact with raw meat

With raw vegetables and fruits, you should wash them, soak them in dilute salt water or dilute vinegar, and peel them before feeding them.

Give the child boiled water

Regularly remind children to wash their hands before eating and after going to the toilet, after playing with pets ... Always cut their nails and nails clean.

Do not allow children to crawl on the floor

In particular, you should give your child periodic deworming.

How to know if pork is contaminated with fluke?

In the process of buying and processing pork for children and the whole family, if you see the following signs of meat, you should throw away immediately because these are pieces of meat with a very high risk of infection:

One of the keys to identifying fast-infected meat is to feel the tenderness of the meat. When you buy, if you feel the meat is hard, inelastic, not flexible when you buy it, you should avoid buying it because it is likely that the meat has been chemically marinated and there is a high risk of infection with tapeworm larvae.

After you buy meat, use a knife to cut it along the fiber. If you find that the meat has white spots the size of a needle, there is a high risk that the meat has been infected with worms. If you see that the flesh has grains such as rice grains, oval in shape, and milky white parallel to the fiber, the meat may have been infected with fluke.

Read the article African Swine Fever is really as many people think?  for more updates on disease related to pork.

Some foods have a high risk of infection that you should not feed your children

1. Undercooked meat

Feeding undercooked meats such as beef, buffalo meat, pork ... will be susceptible to infection with parasites such as swine fluke, tapeworm, liver fluke ... In addition, raw meat is a good environment for Bacteria grow if stored incorrectly, leading to the risk of gastrointestinal infections. Therefore, in order to protect the health of your children, you need to strictly adhere to the principle of "eat well, drink boiled" and do not let children eat undercooked meat.

2. Raw vegetables

Vegetables such as sprouts, cilantro, lettuce ... often have a very high risk of infection. Therefore, you should limit the consumption of vegetables that are undercooked, especially when eating at restaurants. When buying vegetables, you need to wash them many times and soak them in salt water before processing.

3. Nem chua

Nem chua is a food that has a very high risk of infection with pork tapeworms because this dish is made from pig skin, fermented pork. In addition, during the processing and preservation, if not careful, this dish is also very susceptible to infection. Therefore, even if your child is a "fan" of this dish, you should absolutely avoid giving it to your child.