A 64-year-old Australian woman from southeastern New South Wales complained of forgetfulness and feelings of depression. After several investigations, an MRI scan showed that the woman had a brain defect that required surgery. During the procedure, the neurosurgeon made a very special discovery. The woman had an 8-centimeter worm writhing in her brain.
The 64-year-old woman was first admitted to her nearest hospital in late January 2021 after experiencing abdominal pain and diarrhea for three weeks, followed by a constant dry cough, fever and night sweats.
A year later, the woman suffered from depression and forgetfulness. Because of these symptoms, the sixty-year-old was referred to a larger hospital in Canberra, after which some tests and an MRI scan showed that the woman needed brain surgery.
It was an ordinary day in the ward for Dr. Sanjaya Senanayake, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases, until his colleague, a neurosurgeon, called him about an unusual discovery during an operation: “You will never guess what I found in the brain of this lady, it lives and it squirms”.
The neurosurgeon, Dr. Hari Priya Bandi, discovered an 8-centimeter parasitic roundworm in her patient’s brain and sought advice from Dr. Senanayake and other colleagues at the hospital on exactly what steps to take.
We scoured the textbooks for all the different types of roundworms that could cause neurological infections and disease
“Neurosurgeons regularly deal with infections in the brain, but this was a one-off and special find. No one ever expected to find this,” said Dr. Senanayake.
The surprising discovery prompted an emergency meeting at the hospital to find out what kind of roundworm it was and what further treatments were necessary.
“We went through the textbooks looking for all the different types of roundworms that could cause neurological infections and disease,” says Dr. Senanayake. Their search yielded no results, so they sought help from external experts.
“Canberra has a small hospital, so we sent the live worm directly to the lab of a CSIRO scientist who has extensive experience with parasites,” Senanayake continues. Once he arrived at the expert, he immediately knew what kind of roundworm it was. “He just looked at it and said, ‘This is Ophidascaris robertsi.’”
Feces python
The ‘Ophidascaris robertsi’ is a roundworm commonly found in pythons. The woman from Australia is the first case in the world where the parasite has been found in humans.
The woman lives near a lake area where carpet pythons occur. “Despite no direct physical contact, the woman often turned to native grasses to use in cooking,” said Senanayake.
The doctors and scientists suspect that a python may have spread the parasite through its feces in the grass and the woman may have become infected by touching or eating the native grass.
The woman received appropriate medication and is still regularly examined, but she is doing well.
Dr. Senanayake emphasizes the danger of diseases and infections spreading from animals to humans, especially now that people and animals live closer together and habitats overlap more as a result. “About 75% of emerging infections worldwide are zoonotic, meaning transmission has occurred from the animal world to the human world,” he points out.
“This Ophidascaris infection is not transmitted between humans, so this patient’s case will not cause a pandemic like Covid-19 or Ebola. However, the snake and parasite do exist in other parts of the world, so there is a good chance that more cases will be detected in other countries in the coming years,” the doctor added.
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