- The patient had had abdominal cramps and diarrhea for two weeks
- The mother found a moving worm in the young girl’s diaper, which she filmed
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A toddler in Mississippi contracted a parasitic worm that was discovered in her diaper by her horrified mother.
The girl, who lived on a farm in New Albany, Union County, had had stomach cramps and diarrhea for two weeks and had lost her appetite.
The mother found a moving worm in the two-year-old’s diaper while changing her, filmed the worm, and then discarded the diaper and the worm.
CDC researchers later identified the worm in the video as an Ascaris lumbricoides — a large parasitic roundworm — that they believe she picked up from a pig on her farm.
Health officials believed the toddler picked up the parasitic worm from a pig kept on her family’s farm
The girl, who lived on a farm in New Albany, Union County, had had stomach cramps and diarrhea for two weeks and had lost her appetite
Ascaris parasites live in the intestine. Ascaris eggs are passed on through the faeces of infected people or animals. If ingested, the eggs can hatch inside you.
The family, who were originally from Mexico but had been in the United States for 13 years, said the child and her twin sister sometimes ate dirt from the houseplants.
It was believed that the child could have picked up the infection from the pigs, which are a common carrier of parasitic worms.
If an infected pig had jumped outside, worm eggs would have been deposited on the ground.
The worm eggs can then grow into a form of the parasite that can infect others.
An adult female A. lumbricoides found in the Mississippi toddling’s diaper
If contaminated soil was used in the houseplants and the toddler ate the soil, she could have ingested the worm eggs.
Ascariasis often show no symptoms, but they may include abdominal discomfort or pain.
There are an estimated four million cases of ascariasis in the United States at any given time.
The toddler was taken to the family’s local pediatrician, where she was given ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug used to treat infections caused by roundworms, threadworms and other parasites.
No worm eggs or additional worms were found in stool samples from the young girl.
The Mississippi State Department of Health visited the patient’s home, but the family’s pigs had been sent to slaughter.
Health officials reminded family members of the importance of hand washing, especially after touching soil where pigs had defecated.
Only one worm was expelled by the patient, even after treatment, and the absence of eggs during treatment indicated that the toddler had a single worm infection.
Ascaris lumbricoides worms can live in humans for up to two years, and eggs can remain viable in the soil for up to 10 years.
The CDC has been interested in reports of parasitic worms after an increase in hookworm cases in rural Alabama back in the US.
The researchers concluded that sporadic cases of ascariasis in the Americas most often arise from animals, with exposure to pigs or soil contaminated with pig feces as the primary risk factor.
