A young woman in Australia was found to have tapeworm larvae lurking in her brain, a very unusual diagnosis considering she had no risk factors for the condition. It’s believed to be the first ‘locally acquired’ case of the disease in Australia, that is, in someone who hadn’t travelled out of the country.
Taenia solium usually requires pigs to have contact with human faeces to complete their life cycle
The 25-year-old woman went to the hospital after experiencing headaches for a week. An MRI of her head revealed a single brain lesion, which doctors suspected was either a brain abscess or tumour. But when doctors performed brain surgery to remove the lesion, they got a surprise. The lesion was really a cyst, and it wasn’t made of human tissue. Further tests revealed that the cyst contained tapeworm larvae.