The dreaded rat lungworm disease is spreading fast across regions like Africa, South America, and the United States. A hellish parasitic disease, rat lungworm or Angiostrongylus cantonensis is endemic in the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia. However, there is an increasing number of affected individuals outside the disease's point of origin.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rat lungworm disease is a result of either deliberately or accidentally consuming snails and slugs that are infected with the parasite. A less common mode of contracting the rat lungworm disease is through consumption of crabs, shrimps, and frogs. Water might also get contaminated but in very rare cases.
Since January this year, state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park said that there were nine confirmed cases of rat lungworm disease in Hawaii alone. In the mainland United States, there were documented old and new human cases in Alabama, California, and Louisiana. Oklahoma reported a transmission in 2015. Apart from humans, two white-handed gibbons in Miami, Florida died of suspected rat lungworm disease as well.
Recently, the rat lungworm disease made headlines again after a couple who was on a Hawaiian vacation contracted the disease. Couple Ben Manilla and Eliza Lape found a hell-like experience for their honeymoon instead of the blissful environs of the tropics. Manilla and Lape went to Hana from San Francisco in January.
According to the couple, they don't know how they got the rat lungworm disease. However, they said that they already experienced some symptoms even before they left Hawaii. The doctors were also not able to immediately diagnose the rat lungworm disease which is known for being hard to detect.
Lape described her ordeal as similar to being stabbed with a burning knife all throughout her body. For Manilla, he suffered pneumonia twice, a blood clot and several operations. Even today, Manilla is complaining of a kidney problem which is purportedly from rat lungworm disease complication.
