The creature was the larva of an Australian native roundworm not previously known to be a human parasite, named Ophidascaris robertsi.
“I got a call saying: ‘We’ve got a patient with an infection problem. We’ve just removed a live worm from this patient’s brain,'” Senanayake told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
A year earlier, she had been admitted to her local hospital in southeast New South Wales state with symptoms including abdominal pain, diarrhea, a dry cough and night sweats.“This patient had been treated ... for what was a mystery illness that we thought ultimately was a immunological condition because we hadn’t been able to find a parasite before and then out of nowhere, this big lump appeared in the frontal part of her brain,” Senanayake said.
Six months after the worm was removed, the patient's neuropsychiatric symptoms had improved but persisted, the journal article said. The worms’ eggs are commonly shed in snake droppings which contaminate grass eaten by small mammals. The life cycle continues as other snakes eat the mammals.
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