Barbecue goers in North Carolina fell ill with parasites after being served bear meat, a new CDC report confirmed.
In November 2023, 10 unidentified people reported fever, facial swelling, and muscle aches about three weeks after the event.
All attendees, the youngest being only 10 years old, reported consuming undercooked bear meat at the event.
Officials with the North Carolina Division of Public Health said that based on the patients’ symptoms, they had contracted trichinellosis, a rare parasitic infection that occurs only 15 times a year in the United States.
Barbecue attendees in North Carolina fell ill with a rare parasitic infection after eating undercooked bear meat (file image)
The graph above shows how long it took for barbecue-goers to feel symptoms of trichinellosis after consuming bear meat.
Trichinellosis, also called trichinosis, is caused by Trichinella roundworms.
According to the Mayo Clinic, these parasites typically infect bears, cougars, walruses, foxes, wild boars, and domestic pigs.
Humans can contract trichinellosis by consuming immature forms of these worms, called larvae, found in raw or undercooked meat of these animals.
Over the course of several weeks, those worms grow inside a person’s intestines and produce more larvae that travel through the bloodstream to different parts of the body before burrowing into muscle tissue.
Because it takes several weeks, many patients do not experience symptoms right away. According to the CDC’s MMWR report released Thursday, it took 21 days for most infected patients to start showing symptoms.
The average age of the patients was 17 years old, and the barbecue attendees who were sick ranged in age from 10 to 40 years old.
Of the 10 suspected cases, nine patients had facial swelling, six had muscle pain and four had fever.
While mild cases tend to get better on their own, severe cases could cause lung and heart damage. According to the CDC, on average one in every 200 patients with severe cases dies.
The infection can be treated with antiparasitic medications, although they can cost up to $100 per treatment.
It’s unclear what temperature the contaminated meat was cooked to or where it was harvested, but the CDC warned that cooking game meat to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit is the only reliable way to kill trichinella parasites.