Kolkata: Taeniasis is an intestinal infection caused by 3 species of tapeworms - Taenia solium (pork tapeworm), Taenia saginata (beef tapeworm) and Taenia asiatica.
Humans can become infected with T. saginata or T. asiatica when they consume infected beef meat or pig liver tissue, respectively, which has not been adequately cooked, but taeniasis due toT. saginata or T. asiatica has no major impact on human health. Therefore, this factsheets refers to the transmission and health impacts of T. solium only.
Infection with the T. solium tapeworm occurs when humans eat raw or undercooked, infected pork. Tapeworm eggs pass with the faeces and are infective for pigs. Infection in humans with the T. solium tapeworm causes few clinical symptoms.
However as well as being infective for pigs, T. solium eggs may also infect humans if they are ingested, causing infection with the larval parasite in the tissues (human cysticercosis). This infection can result in devastating effects on human health. The larvae (cysticerci) may develop in the muscles, skin, eyes and the central nervous system. When cysts develop in the brain, the condition is referred to as neurocysticercosis.
Symptoms include severe headache, blindness, convulsions, and epileptic seizures, and can be fatal. Neurocysticercosis is the most frequent preventable cause of epilepsy worldwide, and is estimated to cause 30% of all epilepsy cases in in countries where the parasite is endemic.
Cysticercosis mainly affects the health and livelihoods of subsistence farming communities in developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It also reduces the market value of pigs and cattle, and makes pork unsafe to eat.
In 2015, the WHO Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group identified T. solium as a leading cause of deaths from food-borne diseases, resulting in a considerable total of 2.8 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs).
The total number of people suffering from neurocysticercosis, including symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, is estimated to be between 2.56–8.30 million, based on the range of epilepsy prevalence data available.(UNI)
