China News Service, August 15. According to the WeChat official account of Sichuan CDC, recently, some netizens photographed suspected "dragon nematodes" in water bodies and released related videos, which attracted great attention.
In response to this problem, Sichuan disease control experts said that according to the videos and photos released on the Internet, combined with epidemiology, biological morphology and routine monitoring, it is not supported that the nematodes in the video are "dragon nematodes", and there is no need to panic.
Video screenshot
Due to the continuous high temperature recently, citizens are playing more water to cool off, and videos of various slender worms have been photographed in various water bodies, such as "Unidentified creatures suspected of dragon nematodes appear in the waters?" "A terrible linear parasite!" and so on The video is broadcast on various online platforms, attracting a lot of people's attention.
There are different opinions on the Internet, some suspect it is Dracunculia guinea worm (also known as Guinea worm), and some suspect iron nematode.
In response to this problem, Sichuan disease control experts explained: Dracunculiae guinea worm, also known as Guinea worm, adult parasites in the human body and various mammalian tissues, causing dracunculiasis.
The disease is a zoonotic disease, once widely prevalent in Africa, India and other tropical and subtropical regions.
There will be only 14 human cases of D. worm infection worldwide in 2021, of which 7 are in Chad, Africa.
There is only one case reported in my country so far (1995).
There are many nematodes in natural water bodies, most of which are not parasitic on the human body. A few, such as iron nematodes and guinea worms, can infect the human body orally.
Dracunculiae guinea worms are infected by humans or animals by mistakenly ingesting Daphnia daphnia containing infective larvae of this worm.
Iron worms are infected by drinking water or ingesting hosts such as insects, fish, and snails that contain infectious larvae.
The worms in the video will not burrow into the human body, and swallowing the infectious larvae of Daphnia, insects, fish, snails, etc. is the key to infection!
According to the videos and photos released on the Internet, combined with epidemiology, biological morphology, and routine monitoring, it is not supported that the nematodes in the video are "Dragonian worms".
Zhao Li, curator of the Chengdu Huaxi Insect Museum, also said that the nematodes in these videos are not "dragon nematodes", but some kind of nematodes parasitic in the insect's body that entered the water.
There are many insects in nature, and many of them coexist in "harmonious" symbiosis with people and the environment, so there is no need to panic.
To prevent food-borne parasitic diseases, special attention should be paid to drinking water hygiene, do not drink raw water in the wild, avoid raw insects, fish, snails, etc. that may be infected with parasites, and avoid swimming in unclean water in the wild.