Worms, slugs and humans: the medical and popular construction of an emerging infectious disease

Abstract

The identification of the worm Angiostrongylus costaricensis parasitizing land snails and humans in Southern Brazil suggests under-diagnosis and under-notification of patients with abdominal angiostrongyliasis. This article analyzes how the concept of abdominal angiostrongyliasis was constructed in different ways in Costa Rica and Brazil and how these changes affected the understanding of its clinical and epidemiological diagnosis. The research shows that abdominal angiostrongyliasis is, de facto, a sociocultural construct, although the parasites and vectors are real. The analisys also shows the importance of an interdisciplinary approach for understanding disease.

Rat Lungworm Infection in Rodents across Post-Katrina New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

“…Our results indicate that cross-disciplinary analysis of A. cantonensis infection could shed further light on the risk for transmission to humans ( 34 ). As has been found with other zoonoses, human risk might correspond to socioecological disparities in habitat and resources favored by infected definitive and intermediate hosts ( 22 , 23 , 35 – 38 ).…”

Central nervous system manifestations of Angiostrongylus cantonensis infection

“…However, A. malaysiensis has yet to be isolated from humans (Prociv et al, 2000). Since A. costaricensis does not cause neurologic symptoms, this paper will focus on A. cantonensis infection [For more information about A. costaricensis please see additional references (Grisotti and Avila-Pires, 2011; Rebello et al, 2013; Rebello et al, 2012; Rodriguez et al, 2014; Teixeira et al, 1993)].…”

“…MRI may demonstrate high signal intensities over the globus pallidus and cerebral peduncle on T1-weighted imaging, leptomeningeal enhancement, ventriculomegaly, and punctate areas of abnormal enhancement within the cerebral and cerebellar hemisphere on gadolinium-enhancing T1 imaging, and a hyperintense signal on T2-weighted images (Jin et al, 2005; Tsai et al, 2003). It has been stated that T2 signal lesions present in neuroangiostrongyliasis are different from the hemorrhagic lesions present in Gnathostoma spinigerum infections (Grisotti and Avila-Pires, 2011; Kanpittaya et al, 2000; Tsai et al, 2003). …”