CANBERRA: Doctors in Australia have discovered a live parasitic worm in a woman’s brain, a world-first discovery.
Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) and Canberra Hospital in a study published on Tuesday gave details about the discovery of the parasitic roundworm.
The 8cm Ophidascaris robertsi roundworm, normally found in pythons, was removed from the patient, a 64-year-old woman. The woman is alive and recovering from brain surgery.
Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake, an expert on infectious diseases at Canberra Hospital in a statement said that it was a world-first case.
Read Also: WHO: 33 Afghanistan Hospitals May Close Due to Funds Scarcity
The patient was admitted to the hospital in south-east New South Wales (NSW) after complaining of three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhoea in 2021.
A year after she started experiencing oblivion and depression. A neurosurgeon at Canberra Hospital noted an abnormality in her brain’s right frontal lobe from an MRI scan. He later performed the surgery on the women that discovered the roundworm.
The study believes that the patient was perhaps infected by touching, or eating native grasses that a carpet python had shed the parasite into.
