• Question: What was the main problem with the boy(with the worms) and what happened to him.

    Asked by abimbola to Deuan on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by carmelalewis, chloerodrigues.
    • Photo: Deuan Jones

      Deuan Jones answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      This boy had an infection of parasitic worms. They normally get taken into your body when you eat something that hasn’t been cleaned – like you pick it off the ground and don’t know there are worm eggs there. They mature in you intestine a bit before moving to your lungs where they grow a bit more and then climb up your lungs towards the throat where they get swallowed again and grow some more! Here the female lays aggs which get passed out when you go to the toilet and if it ends up on some nice moist soil somewhere the eggs are ready to infect someone else!

      In the photo though, somehow the worms had stayed in the lungs as they got bigger and that’s how they were starting to come out of the nose and mouth. You can find some great videos of these worms (Ascaris worms) actually moving around in the intestine on youtube.

      Blehhhh.

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