{"id":31120,"date":"2025-04-18T20:39:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T20:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/31120\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T20:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T20:39:11","slug":"disturbing-image-of-one-of-worlds-largest-human-parasites-that-infected-man-35-after-common-cooking-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/31120\/","title":{"rendered":"Disturbing image of one of ‘world’s largest human parasites’ that infected man, 35, after common cooking error"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JOHN ELY DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published: 05:51 EDT, 18 April 2025 | Updated: 05:54 EDT, 18 April 2025 <\/p>\n

A 35-year-old Indian man who couldn’t urinate learned his problem was being caused by a horrifying worm that can grow up to a metre in length inside the human body.<\/p>\n

Disturbing images published by medics who treated the man show the red worm after it emerged out of his bladder, alive and wriggling.<\/p>\n

Analysis revealed the worm belonged to a species called Dioctophyma renale, commonly known as the ‘giant kidney worm’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interviews with the patient revealed that he commonly ate raw fish from a lake near his home, and medics suspected this was likely how he became infected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eating raw or undercooked fish is a known way for humans to become infected as these animals can carry the worm larvae inside their bodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Medics, who treated the unnamed man in the city of Meerut in northern India<\/a>, said he came into hospital in June 2015 complaining of being unable to urinate and suffering a fever.<\/p>\n

Staff who examined his vital signs found he was pale and had an elevated heart rate.<\/p>\n

Doctors\u00a0\u2014 suspecting he had an infection\u00a0\u2014 admitted him to hospital and gave him antibiotics.<\/p>\n

\"Disturbing <\/p>\n

Disturbing images, published by medics who treated the man, show the red worm after it had emerged out of his bladder<\/p>\n

\"On <\/p>\n

On his second day in hospital the patient alerted staff to the presence of a wriggling worm \u2014 and some blood \u2014 in the catheter bag (pictured)<\/p>\n

They also inserted a\u00a0catheter\u00a0\u2014 a soft flexible tube that empties urine into a plastic bag \u2014 to help empty his bladder.<\/p>\n

However, on his second day in hospital the patient alerted staff to the presence of a wriggling worm\u00a0\u2014 and some blood\u00a0\u2014 in the\u00a0catheter bag.<\/p>\n

A report, published in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research<\/a>, details that the ‘blood red’ worm was 11.8in (30cm) long with a diameter of 0.13in (3-4mm) and had anatomical features identifying it as a male giant kidney worm.<\/p>\n

The man was lucky that he hadn’t been infected with a female specimen as these can grow over 3ft (1m).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Medics continued to analyse the man’s urine for the next three days but found no additional worms or any traces of any eggs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The man also revealed to medics he had urinated a few of the worms in the past.<\/p>\n

Concluding their report the authors said the man, after a short period of treatment, left hospital against medical advice so they were unable to follow-up his care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Human infection of\u00a0giant kidney worm, medically called dioctophymiasis, is very rare.<\/p>\n

A 2019 review <\/a>by Chinese researchers only found 37 human cases recorded in medical literature, some being infected with as many as 15 worms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While half of patients had a history of eating raw or undercooked fish or frogs, the potential transmission route was unknown for the remaining half.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drinking un-boiled water where these animals reside is also a potential transmission route.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once in the human body the worm larvae migrate to the kidney where they then grow into adult worms and can live for up to five years.<\/p>\n

They can cause issues like blocking the flow of urine to the bladder, kidney swelling, and tissue death.<\/p>\n

Treatment varies depending on the extent of the infection and how much of the kidney has been damaged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minor cases can be treated with medication, but more serious infections can require surgery, including potentially removal of the entire kidney.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Medics have noted that due to its rarity\u00a0dioctophymiasis is often misdiagnosed among patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Human infection with giant kidney worm is rare with the parasite more commonly found in carnivorous mammals like dogs,\u00a0otters and weasels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Share or comment on this article:
\n Disturbing image of one of ‘world’s largest human parasites’ that infected man, 35, after common cooking error<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JOHN ELY DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE Published: 05:51 EDT, 18 April 2025 | Updated: 05:54 EDT,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[92,105,730,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-31120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-india","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114360901345055105","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}