Health
Undercooked bear meat to blame for infecting family with rare roundworm parasite: CDC
At least six family members, including a 12-year-old, who gathered for a meal of black bear meat during a family reunion in South Dakota were infected by a rare roundworm parasite known as trichinellosis, the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention said in a release on Thursday.
Eight members of the family ate a meal together in South Dakota in 2022 that included the meat which one of them had been harvested in Saskachewan, Canada, and frozen for 45 days after a hunting outfitter recommended that as a way to get rid of parasites.
“Persons who consume meat from wild game animals should be aware that adequate cooking is the only reliable way to kill Trichinella parasites, and that infected meat can cross-contaminate other foods,” the CDC said in the release.
The meat was then grilled and served with vegetables as kebabs. Two of the infected family members had only eaten the vegetables.
EXPERTS QUESTION RFK JR.’S SUDDEN ‘BIZARRE’ MEDICAL CLAIMS THAT INCLUDE BRAIN WORMS, MERCURY POISONING
Parasite larvae from the black bear meat. (CDC)
Because the meat was darker, it was inadvertently served rare, which some of the family members mentioned and then recooked.
In July 2022, six days after the meal, one of the family members, a 29-year-old who had returned to Minnesota, began to experience symptoms, including fever, severe muscle aches, periorbital edema (swelling around the eyes), and eosinophilia.
After the 29-year-old was hospitalized for the second time in 17 days, health care providers found out he had eaten bear meat, and he was diagnosed with the parasite and the Minnesota Department of Health was notified.
The man was prescribed empiric albendazole as a treatment.
“Albendazole is used to treat infections caused by worms,” according to the Mayo Clinic. “It works by keeping the worm from absorbing sugar (glucose), so that the worm loses energy and dies.”
All the patients who ate the black bear meat recovered from the parasite infection. (iStock)
Eight family members, who live in Minnesota, South Dakota and Arizona, were interviewed by public health officials and six of them were found to have the parasite.
A ninth person, who is a minor and whose exposure to the meat couldn’t be confirmed, appeared to be healthy, the CDC said.
MAN SUFFERING FROM MIGRAINES FOUND TO HAVE TAPEWORMS IN BRAIN AFTER CONSUMING PARTIALLY COOKED BACON: STUDY
Another two of the infected family members were hospitalized and prescribed albendazole, and all six family members recovered.
After the infected meat is ingested and “After exposure to gastric acid and pepsin, the larvae are released from the cysts and invade the small bowel mucosa where they develop into adult worms,” the CDC said of the parasite. “Females are 2.2 mm in length; males 1.2 mm. The life span in the small bowel is about four weeks. After one week, the females release larvae that migrate to striated muscles where they encyst.”
Microscopic examination of encapsulated larvae in a black bear meat muscle. (CDC)
The larvae can move through the body to muscle tissue and even to the brain, CBS reported.
The CDC advised: “Cooking meat to an internal temperature of ≥165°F (≥74°C) is necessary to kill Trichinella spp. parasites. Trichinella-infected meat can cross-contaminate other foods, and raw meat should be kept and prepared separate from other foods to prevent cross-contamination.”
U.S. health officials are monitoring 16 additional people across the country for symptoms of hantavirus whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not previously mentioned, the agency said on Thursday.
The new people the C.D.C. reported were not on the cruise ship but were passengers on an April 25 flight to Johannesburg and exposed to someone known to have been infected, said Dr. David Fitter, who is leading the C.D.C.’s response to the outbreak.
The new total of those being monitored in the United States is 41, a significant increase over the 18 passengers from the Dutch cruise ship who were brought back to the United States on Monday. They are quarantining at special facilities in Omaha and Atlanta.
Seven other passengers from the cruise ship had disembarked on April 24 in St. Helena, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, returned to the United States on commercial flights and are being monitored by state health departments.
As of Thursday, there were no confirmed cases in the United States, Dr. Fitter said.
The infected passenger was a 69-year-old Dutch woman whose husband was the first person to die in the outbreak, on April 11. She was among those who disembarked from the ship on April 24. The next day, she flew from St. Helena to Johannesburg. She collapsed shortly after arrival and died on April 26. She was confirmed on May 4 to have had hantavirus.
C.D.C. officials would not give any other information about the 16 passengers, including where they had gone once they reached the United States.
It was not clear whether all Americans exposed to the virus are now back in the country, or whether there are additional people being monitored abroad.
“Our job is to ensure that we are monitoring and in contact with anybody that might have been on the flight this person had taken,” Dr. Fitter told reporters. The agency is “monitoring all Americans that potentially would have been exposed, whether in the U.S. or abroad, and we have been in contact with them,” he said.
In an interview on Sunday with CNN, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the C.D.C.’s acting director, said none of the seven passengers who returned to the United States earlier had symptoms at the time of their travel, so officials had not seen a need to alert the public or trace contacts.
For the moment, quarantine is essentially voluntary. Officials are encouraging those who were exposed to the virus to “stay at home and avoid being around people during their 42-day monitoring period,” Dr. Fitter said.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Concerns about rising hantavirus cases has Americans reflecting on the coronavirus pandemic.
Although COVID-19 began with a foreign strain and spread rapidly around the world, experts say it’s not likely that hantavirus will behave the same way.
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact.
RARE HANTAVIRUS HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION SUSPECTED ON LUXURY CRUISE SHIP WHERE 3 HAVE DIED
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel spoke with Fox News Digital about the similarities and differences between hantavirus and coronavirus, noting that there is “no comparison.”
“You could say the comparison ends at that they’re both single-stranded RNA viruses,” he said. “That’s a comparison, but [hantavirus] has been unchanged basically for decades.”
Dr. Marc Siegel says there’s “no comparison between these two viruses, other than that the single-stranded RNA viruses are both carried by animals.” (iStock)
Coronavirus was different because it began to mutate, which started to cause “all kinds of problems,” Siegel noted.
“We don’t know why it started to mutate, but this one doesn’t appear to have done that,” he said. “And every day that goes by seems to show that theory is correct – the genetics of it is the same.”
DR MARC SIEGEL: HANTAVIRUS CRUISE OUTBREAK IS ALARMING BUT FEAR IS SPREADING FASTER THAN FACTS
“So, there’s no comparison between these two viruses, other than that the single-stranded RNA viruses are both carried by animals.”
Siegel added that COVID is an airborne virus, while hantavirus is mainly a secretion-borne virus, although it can be transmitted through dust and droppings in the air.
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact. (Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu)
“It’s not airborne … in terms of respiratory droplets hanging in the air,” he said. “It’s very difficult to transmit.”
While coronavirus “moved in the direction of humans in a significant way,” hantavirus has not, except for “very rare” human-to-human transmission, according to the doctor.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
There have been hantavirus cases in the U.S. for decades, although they are “very rare,” Siegel noted.
Certain factors of this disease spread are changing, including warming temperatures that are causing rodents to migrate north toward Buenos Aires, according to the doctor.
DEADLY CRUISE VIRUS TIMELINE SHOWS HOW HANTAVIRUS SPREAD AMONG PASSENGERS
The current outbreak stemming from the cruise ship did not help the cause, Siegel went on — but this spread doesn’t suggest that the virus has changed. Rather, it shows how close quarters on a ship are “very conducive” to spread, he said.
Passengers disembark from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, on May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
“Every day that goes by shows that … we’re not seeing a second generation of spread,” he reiterated.
The better comparison to make is between hantavirus and bird flu, which is a predominantly animal-based virus that “occasionally infects humans,” Siegel said.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES
“There are billions of birds, and every year we talk about how it’s going to cause a pandemic, but it would have to mutate significantly,” he pointed out. “I feel that [hantavirus] would have to mutate significantly before it could go human to human in any significant way, because this is basically an animal virus … it’s very comfortable inside a rodent host.”
Siegel went on, “If you get this virus, you’re in trouble, but getting this virus is very difficult.”
A person visits a COVID testing site on a Manhattan street in New York City on Jan. 21, 2022. “Coronaviruses are airborne … this is not,” Dr. Siegel said. “And coronaviruses mutate a lot, and this does not.” (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Regarding fears that another global pandemic may be looming, Siegel said that just because one virus becomes widespread does not mean all viruses will.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“Coronaviruses are airborne anyway. This is not. And coronaviruses mutate a lot, and this does not,” he said. “I’m much more concerned about flu than this. Flu can mutate all the time, and it’s already going human to human all over the place, and it’s airborne.”
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
“Most infectious disease specialists are much more worried about flu than this, as deadly as this can be,” he added.
“We’re talking apples and oranges, and any comparison you make after that provokes fear.”
Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.
One morning just before Christmas, Michelle stood in a Thrifty-Wash, watching her seven loads of laundry tumble and spin. The machine at the Airbnb had broken and flooded the place. It had been a blessing, in a way — Michelle needed this time alone to think.
The night before, Los Angeles Unified School District officials had hosted a Zoom webinar for parents, in which they had promised to present all the evidence that campus was safe. Michelle had gone in with high hopes, maybe even optimism. Afterward, she called it “the Zoom from hell.”
The officials had opened the meeting by announcing that Pali High’s students would go back to campus at the end of January. Michelle had peered at the screen, squinting to make sense of their color-coded maps, charts and checklists as district officials and their third-party contractors used wonky terms to describe what sounded to Michelle like rudimentary decontamination methods: “visual inspections,” “glove tests,” “subjective evaluations for smoke odor” and the copious use of wet wipes.
The “Environmental Concerns” WhatsApp group began pinging with live commentary. “It’s like they’re all hanging out with my insurance company,” one mother typed. “Transparency my a$$,” wrote another.
During the question-and-answer portion, parents flooded the submission box: Why weren’t the porous ceiling tiles removed? (“We did our best to remove any surface contaminants that we could see visually,” one contractor replied.) Did they realize that lithium had been detected in smoke-damaged homes near the school? (“Lithium, we determined, was not going to be a high-priority metal for us,” another contractor explained.) And why hadn’t they tested for benzene, carbon tetrachloride or perchloroethylene — some of which had been found in other Palisades buildings after the fires?
Michelle had a hunch she knew the answer, but she assumed no official would ever admit it. Then the project manager for one of the contractors came on the screen.
“There are hundreds — literally — of different compounds that could be produced during a fire,” he said, “and there are analytical methods that can be very, very precise in sampling for those.” But the problem, he said, was that it “lacks specificity in what we can actually deal with … ”
Michelle had shaken her head in disbelief. The project manager interrupted himself. “That was the wrong way to put that,” he muttered.
This morning, Michelle had waked to some parents on the “Environmental Concerns” chat talking about putting their kids in virtual learning. Others were hoping to transfer. Michelle was fantasizing about protesting the return to campus, even dreaming up the picket signs: “Lead should only be in pencils,” or maybe, “Test on the school, not on the kids.”
-
California3 minutes agoJD Vance accuses California of letting Medicaid fraudsters cash in at taxpayer expense | Fox Business Video
-
Colorado9 minutes ago
Families, care providers navigate cuts to Colorado’s Community Connector program | Rocky Mountain PBS
-
Connecticut15 minutes agoARREST WARRANT: Georgia man accused of laundering nearly $63K from dead person’s account in Connecticut
-
Delaware21 minutes agoKent, Sussex Counties see rising share of Delaware roadway deaths in 2026
-
Florida27 minutes agoFlorida Wawa gas station plans approved for new Treasure Coast store
-
Georgia33 minutes agoGeorgia sample ballot for the 2026 primary elections shows every race to vote on this year
-
Hawaii39 minutes ago20 years in the making: County purchases Honolulu Landing property – West Hawaii Today
-
Idaho45 minutes agoMeet the candidates in Idaho’s biggest legislative primaries