Watch out for intestinal fluke

In the types of helminths that cause diseases for humans, there are intestinal fluke. This parasite parasites both in humans and some animals, especially very common in pigs.

The intestinal fluke parasites in the human intestine and causes illness in humans, but the way of spreading the disease is not simple. The cycle of this trematode is very complicated, requires many hosts, many different stages of development do not spread directly from the flukes in the intestine of the pig to humans through the pork heart.

Intestinal fluke (Photo: health.vnn.vn)

Flukes are 30-70mm long, 14-15mm wide, parasitic in the intestine and lay eggs there. The fluke eggs in the feces excrete the water sources. After a while, the larvae gradually form in the eggs. After 2-3 weeks of fully developed larvae in eggs, break the eggshell outward to find snails to parasite. After entering the snail, the larvae continue to grow into tail larvae. Now they remove snails, live on some aquatic plants such as ducklings, look at the lotus, tubers . People eat these un-cooked aquatic plants and eat them with the intestinal flukes larvae. When entering the body, larvae attach to the small intestine, parasites and mature there. The time from larvae to the body to maturity is about 90 days.

Intestinal flukes are common in many Asian countries, especially in areas with many lakes and ponds, many aquatic plants are used as food for humans and cattle.

Thus, a person or a pig with intestinal flukes is caused by eating aquatic plants with undercooked tapeworm larvae. In Vietnam, pigs with this disease are very popular because the main food of pigs is duckweed. People with less intestinal flukes are less likely to eat water plants that grow under the water (such as larvae, lotus fingers, tubers, etc.).

Symptoms of intestinal flukes are as follows: In the first stage, patients only suffer from fatigue, mild anemia, decreased health . When the disease is global, the patient suffers from abdominal pain with diarrhea. Loose stools have no blood, but mucus and many undigested foods. Patients often have abdominal pain in the lower abdomen, pain with diarrhea, sometimes severe pain can occur. If the patient has many flukes and is not treated, the disease will become more severe, possibly edema, fluid in many organs and death in the state of exhaustion.

The treatment of intestinal flukes is not difficult, as long as we pay attention to early detection and early treatment. Currently, medicine has many good helminthic drugs, including intestinal fluke. Medications and specific doses decided by physicians.

To prevent this disease we should not eat uncooked aquatic plants. In addition, a good source of fertilizer must be well managed, no fresh manure applied to crops, especially aquatic plants.

Doctor HUONG LIEN