A brain-infesting worm carried by gastropods is spreading around the world.
Sam Ballard was 19 years old when friends at a party dared him to swallow a slug. Within days, the Australian teen developed a rare form of meningitis & fell into a coma that lasted more than a year. Even after waking up, he remains paralyzed from the neck down.
The culprit, doctors said, was a parasite in the slug called a rat lungworm, which can burrow into the human brain. 
Ballard isn’t alone, or even the only person infected on a dare - at least three reported cases involve boys or young men who were dared to eat a slug or snail. What’s more, the parasite is now spreading to new places around the globe.
What is rat lung worm disease?
Rat lung worm or Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a parasite that mainly lives in rodents such as rats & can infect snails and slugs that come into contact with infected rat faeces. People can be infected when they eat an infected snail or slug.
Rat lung worm or Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a parasite that mainly lives in rodents such as rats & can infect snails and slugs that come into contact with infected rat faeces. People can be infected when they eat an infected snail or slug.
The adult worms are found in rats. Infected rats excrete the parasite larvae in their faeces. The parasites can then infect snails and slugs that come into contact with infected rat faeces.
People can be infected when they eat a raw snail/ slug that contains the lung worm larvae or if they eat unwashed raw leafy vegetables that have been contaminated by the slime of infected snails. People infected with rat lung worm do not pass the infection on to others.
Most people may have no symptoms at all. Others may have only mild, short lived symptoms.
Rat lung worm causes an infection of the brain called eosinophilic meningo-encephalitis. People with this condition may have headaches, stiff neck, tingling in the skin, fever, nausea, & vomiting. The time between eating the slug or snail and getting sick is usually 1-3 weeks.
Originally from Asia, rat lungworm is now found in Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. In 2017, Hawaii’s state epidemiologist Sarah Park said they now have about 10 human cases of rat lungworm a year.
Rat lungworms can live in a variety of snail and slug species, which show no obvious signs of infection, so it’s impossible to know whether any animals you see outdoors are carriers.
Snails hold a lot of parasites. Parasites as part of their secret-world-domination-agendas always wanted a host that will be eaten, and snails are food for lots of animals, including birds.
They’re also accidentally consumed by pets and other animals when the creatures get into drinking water. In Florida, the parasite has turned up in dogs, miniature horses, birds, and various wild animals.
It’s believed to have killed a white-handed gibbon at Miami’s Metro Zoo in 2004, and a privately held orangutan in the Miami area died after eating infected snails in 2012.
As rat lungworm reaches new parts of the world, experts say we’re the ones who are going to have to adapt. And a good first step is not eating raw gastropods.
THEY ARE NOT ESCARGOT: DO NOT EAT GARDEN SLUGS/ SNAILS
THEY ARE NOT ESCARGOT: DO NOT EAT GARDEN SLUGS/ SNAILS
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