SNAKE PARASITES ALIVE!
When a 64-year-old woman from New South Wales, Australia, was first admitted to her local hospital in January 2021 after suffering three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, followed by a constant dry cough, fever and night sweats, doctors could not pin down the cause, so continued to monitor her. By 2022, her symptoms included depression and forgetfulness, so she was referred to a Canberra hospital for a brain MRI. Her scan revealed brain abnormalities that needed surgery to investigate further. The operation was carried out by neurosurgeon Dr Hari Priya Bandi, who immediately called his colleague Dr Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious” said Senanayake. This is a parasite of carpet pythons and had never been found in a human before. The doctors discovered that the patient often collected wild plants near a lake area where there are carpet pythons, and believe she picked up the parasite from snake fæces on the vegetation she ate. “That poor patient, she was so courageous and wonderful,” Senanayake said. “You don’t want to be the first patient in the world with a roundworm found in pythons and we really take our hats off to her.”
