What is roundworm disease?

  Ascaris lumbricoides is a common human digestive tract parasite, and about 1/4 of the world’s population is infected with Ascaris lumbricoides. The results of our sample survey in the 1990s showed that the number of people infected with roundworms was about 530 million. It can be seen that roundworm disease is still one of the main parasitic diseases that endanger the health of our people, especially farmers.  Ascaris lumbricoides is a long cylindrical, earthworm-like, about the size of a chopstick, parasitic in the human small intestine, semi-digested food in the intestinal cavity for nutrition, male and female worms mating after the female began to lay eggs, each female worm can lay more than 200,000 eggs a day. The eggs are excreted with human feces and take 1-2 weeks to develop into infective eggs containing a single larva in a humid, shaded, oxygen-rich and temperature-appropriate external environment. People can become infected if they accidentally ingest the eggs.  In endemic areas, the use of human manure as fertilizer and open defecation are the main ways of contaminating soil and ground with Ascaris lumbricoides eggs, and people become infected by contacting the contaminated soil and swallowing the Ascaris lumbricoides eggs attached to their fingers through the mouth. Vegetables with soil fertilized with human manure often carry roundworm eggs, which are brought indoors through vegetables bought from the market and can contaminate floors, furniture, dishes and fingers. This way of spreading roundworm eggs through vegetables is a major source of roundworm infection for people in the city. In addition, people’s dietary habits are also important; many people like to eat cold vegetables, and if they are not washed, they can easily acquire infection.  Roundworms are harmful to the human body. There is a folk saying that roundworms are “elimination worms” and are good for the human body. This statement is completely wrong. Both larvae and adult roundworms can cause disease. The larvae can cause ascaris pneumonia during their migration in the human body. Adult worms are more harmful. They plunder nutrition and cause malnutrition; they reside in the small intestine and cause gastrointestinal dysfunction; a large number of worms twist together to cause intestinal obstruction and even intestinal necrosis and intestinal perforation; they burrow into the common bile duct and cause biliary colic, and secondary bacterial infection can cause cholangitis and liver abscess, and the fragments and eggs of dead roundworms in the bile duct can be used as the core for the formation of sediment-like gallstones; they burrow into the pancreatic duct and cause hemorrhagic necrotizing pancreatitis; Drilling into the appendix causes acute appendicitis, and even leads to appendiceal perforation. Thus, we can see that the harmfulness of roundworms should not be underestimated.  The common symptoms after human suffer from roundworm disease are irregular recurring pain around the umbilicus, loss of appetite, nausea, indigestion, and sometimes diarrhea or constipation, and roundworms can be excreted from the stool or vomited from the mouth. Children may sometimes have neurological symptoms, such as convulsions, night terrors, teeth grinding, and xenophagia. Those who have the above symptoms should go to the hospital for timely treatment.  It is not difficult to diagnose ascariasis. Ascaris lumbricoides produces a large number of eggs, and the eggs of ascaris lumbricoides can be easily found by examining feces with a microscope. In addition, the diagnosis can also be confirmed if the worms are found in the vomit or excreted with the stool. There are specific drugs for the treatment of roundworm disease, and albendazole and mebendazole are both safe and effective broad-spectrum nematode repellents, which can be standardized under the guidance of a doctor. It is worth mentioning that although roundworms only live for about a year, people can be infected repeatedly. Therefore, treated patients should still be examined regularly in the future and treated with regular medication if roundworms are found to be present again.  In addition to strengthening fecal management to make feces harmless, prevention of roundworm disease should pay special attention to hygiene knowledge popularization and publicity and education. As each individual, we should pay attention to personal hygiene, wash hands before meals and after stools, do not urinate and defecate anywhere, do not eat raw vegetables and unwashed sweet potatoes, carrots, etc., and do not drink raw water to prevent ingestion of roundworm eggs and reduce the chance of infection.