01:23 PM
Tuesday 09 August 2022
I wrote – Yasmine El-Sawy:
A challenge between a group of friends leads to a tragic end for one of them, 19-year-old Australian teenager Sam Ballard in 2010 when he swallowed a snail that was walking on the ground.
Ballard did not know that he had swallowed a deadly worm that would put him in a coma that lasted more than a year, following it paralyzed him, CNN reported.
Ballard felt weak and began complaining of pain in his legs, while the teen’s mother, Katie Ballard, said on a news program that they were initially worried regarding the possibility of him having multiple sclerosis, which had afflicted her husband, but doctors said no, that was not the reason.
Ballard had to tell his mother and the doctors that he had swallowed a snail, and it turned out that it had strongyloidiasis, or the so-called “rat lung worm disease”.
The disease actually settles in the lungs of mice, and then the bacteria are excreted through the faeces, and humans can become infected when eating contaminated raw or undercooked animals or vegetables carrying these snails that have not been properly washed.
And unlike mice, the worm’s life cycle isn’t complete in humans, and instead of passing through the digestive system, the worm’s larvae can get lost, go to the brain and stay there, said Heather Stockdale-Walden, assistant professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathology at the University of Florida.
The disease is not transmitted from person to person, but when it reaches the brain, you can develop eosinophilic meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said symptoms can include headache, nausea, vomiting, fever and a stiff neck.
Most cases are usually mild, but in some cases, the disease can cause catastrophic problems. Ballard fell into a coma for 420 days, from which he woke up paralyzed, unable to eat without a tube and not moving around effortlessly.
He needed 24-hour care until he died at Hornsby Hospital near where he grew up.
