2. What is it?
Parasitic disease
Commonly called the trichina worm
Caused by eating raw or undercooked
pork or wild game products that are
infected with the larvae of the
roundworm
3. Morphology
Have complete digestive system
Round cross section
Bilaterally symmetric
Has both mouth and anus
4. Where is it?
Most common in the developing world
and where pigs are commonly fed raw
garbage.
Infection occurs commonly in certain wild
carnivorous animals and in domestic
pigs.
5. Diversity and Spread of Trichinella
Just the pink horizontal
stripes are T. spiralis
8. Signs and Symptoms
First Stage
Second Stage
Nausea
Headaches
Diarrhea
Fever
Vomiting
Chills
Fatigue
Eye swelling
Fever
Achy joints
Abdominal pain
Muscle pains
Hemorrhages
Itchy skin
As worms encyst in different body parts….
9. Incubation Period
Abdominal symptoms occur 1-2 days
after infection.
Further symptoms usually occur 2-8
weeks after consuming contaminated
meat.
Severity often depends on the number of
worms ingested.
Mild cases of this disease are often
mistaken for the flu.
10. Risk Factors
Eating raw or undercooked meats,
especially pork and wild game.
It is not transmitted from one person to
another.
11. Diagnosis
A blood test or muscle biopsy
Stool studies can detect adult worms,
females being 3mm long and males
about half that size.
13. Treatment
Corticosteroids-treat joint pain and
inflammation. Treat symptoms more than
anything.
Thiabendazole-kills the adult worms, but
there is no treatment however, that kills
the larvae.
14. Prevention
Cooking meat products thoroughly.
Freezing pork than 6 inches thick for 20
days at 5 °F or three days at −4 °F kills
larval worms.
Cooking all meat fed to pigs or wild
game.