Published on
Updated
Reading 2 min.
Six of eight members of the same family developed a parasitic infection after eating – or just touching – undercooked bear meat. Explanations.
Six members of a South Dakota family were infected with a dangerous parasite (roundworm) after eating undercooked bear kebabs, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The meat had in fact been served rare.
A rare parasite found in wild game meat
The facts date back to 2022: while this American family feasts on black bear skewers, an animal which had been hunted in Canada and whose meat had been kept in a freezer for several weeks, strange symptoms soon appeared. appear.
Just a few days after this feast, one of the young members of the family, aged 29, developed a fever, severe muscle pain and even swelling of the eyes.
He then went to the hospital where he was hospitalized several times (twice in three weeks) due to trichinellosis – a parasitic zoonotic disease transmitted by eating meat from infected animals.
To help him recover, the doctors decided to administer a drug called albendazole, which is active against a large number of parasitic intestinal worms.
This product is used to “treat infections caused by worms […] It prevents the worm from absorbing the sugar, causing it to lose energy and die.”explains the hospital to the Center for Disease Control.
Little bear (black) is one hell of a rascal…
The problem ? The thirty-year-old is not the only one affected, since two other people had to be hospitalized because of the worms… which had reached their brains. Once in the human host, the larvae can indeed move throughout the body to muscle tissues and organs, as explained in the diagram below taken from the biodiversity portal in Wallonia.
As for the other members of the family – who had not even consumed contaminated meat – they too were “carriers” of the parasite. In fact, a simple contact with it was enough to make them carriers.
Wild game meat: be careful not to cook it!
If the family wrongly believed they were protecting themselves from parasites by freezing the meat for 45 days, this method is absolutely not recommended by the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“People who consume wild game meat should be aware that cooking is the only reliable way to kill parasites.” warns the body.
The best, as ANSES explains, is “cooking food at a temperature of 70°C“, that’s to say “to heart“. This one “helps eliminate the majority of pathogenic microorganisms.”
The CDC also states that the prevalence of Trichinella parasites among wild animals is “varied considerably“, up to a quarter of black bears in Canada and Alaska could be infected.