Doctors have warned the public about the risks of eating raw meat and drinking tap water after parasitic tapeworms were found in a woman’s spine.
The woman, in her 30s, who often ate sashimi and drank tap water, began experiencing severe back pain and partial paralysis in her legs, the Chinese-language Apple Daily reported.
When the woman’s symptoms worsened, she sought treatment at the Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, where doctors performed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.
Lin Tsu-kung (林祖功), head of the hospital’s Department of Neurology, was quoted by the Apple Daily as saying that the MRI scan showed long irregular shapes in the woman’s lumbar spine, spreading across five vertebrae.
“We saw [her spine] was filled with objects of irregular shapes, but it was not until we operated that we discovered the objects were still moving,” he said, adding that they were shocked to discover sparganosis — a parasitic infection caused by the larvae of tapeworms.
The larvae, with the longest being about 20cm, were removed from the woman’s spine and taken to the hospital’s Department of Pathology for examination.
Lin said the woman was in the habit of drinking tap water and often ate raw tilapia, so the larvae likely entered her body orally and made their way into her spine where they damaged her nervous system, causing back pain, partial paralysis in her legs and urinary dysfunction.
Lin Jui-wei (林瑞偉), a physician at the Department of Pathology, was quoted by the Apple Daily as saying that sparganosis is caused by the larvae of a type of parasitic tapeworm that can grow up to 10m in the human body, adding that its larvae can grow up to 30cm.
While the definitive hosts for this type of tapeworm are dogs and cats, its larvae can live in fish, snakes and humans for many years, the Apple Daily said.
Lin Jui-wei said that although the tapeworm larvae were removed, the damage to the woman’s nervous system might be permanent.
Lin Tsu-kung said people can prevent sparganosis by boiling tap or mountain spring water before drinking it and avoid eating raw meat.
Additional reporting by staff writer
MEDICAL: The bills would also upgrade the status of the Ethical Guidelines Governing the Research of Human Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cell Research to law The Executive Yuan yesterday approved two bills to govern regenerative medicine that aim to boost development of the field. Taiwan would reach an important milestone in regenerative medicine development with passage of the regenerative medicine act and the regenerative medicine preparations ordinance, which would allow studies to proceed and treatments to be developed, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) told reporters at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting. Regenerative treatments have been used for several conditions, including cancer — by regenerating blood cells — and restoring joint function in soft tissue, Wang said. The draft legislation requires regenerative treatments
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese
WARFARE: The PLA aims to use space-based capabilities to enhance its force projection to make the Indo-Pacific region too costly for the US to protect, experts said China is rapidly building space capabilities to be able to launch precision strikes on Taiwan, the US and its allies, US Space Force leaders said at a recent conference in London. China is developing counterspace warfare capabilities including GPS jamming systems and anti-satellite missiles at “breathtaking speed,” said General Stephen Whiting, commander of the US Space Command. In the past six years, Beijing tripled its number of dedicated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites, while rapidly fielding dual-use satellites, Whiting said, adding that the capabilities are honed for detecting movements at sea. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might have already achieved substantial benefits