New research from the University of Hawaii at Manoa shows that rat lungworm can be transmitted by many more species than slugs and snails.
The joint effort between UH-Manoa and the University of London analyzed 140 studies and found 32 different species can act as carriers of rat lungworm disease in humans. These include freshwater prawns/shrimp, crayfish, crabs, flatworms, fish, sea snakes, frogs, toads, lizards, centipedes, cattle, pigs and snails.
At least 13 of these species have been associated with causing rat lungworm disease in humans, including prawns/shrimp, crabs, flatworms, fish, frogs, toads, lizards and centipedes.
“It is important to know not only that snails and slugs can transmit rat lungworm parasites to humans but also which other animals — which paratenic hosts — can also do so,” said senior author of the study Robert Cowie from UH-Manoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “The goal of the study was to pull all the information on paratenic hosts and their role in transmission of rat lungworm disease, previously scattered in diverse publications and obscure reports, together into one place and develop a global understanding of their diversity and role in disease transmission.”
Cowie noted that the rat lungworm has a complex life cycle that involves slugs and snails as “intermediate” hosts and rats as “definitive” hosts in which the worms reach maturity and reproduce.
Just as rats become infected, people can become infected when they eat an infected species, which can lead to serious illness and occasionally death.
Rat lungworm develops in a person’s brain, where the parasites are moving around, feeding and growing, but the worms die without completing their life cycle. Their death causes damage to the brain and extreme inflammation, which results in symptoms.
Common symptoms include headaches, a stiff neck, tingling or pain in the skin, fever, nausea, and vomiting, which can last between one to three weeks.
See Tuesday’s edition of the Tribune-Herald for more.