Giant Intestinal Worm

• GeneralIt infects hundreds of millions of people; the females lay as many as 200,000 eggs a day.
• parasitismoIt is one of the commonest human parasites in the world, and the females can lay as many as 200,000 eggs a day throughout their adult life in the gut.
• Before settling in the gut, the larva makes an extraordinary detour: it crosses the intestinal wall, travels in the blood to the lungs, climbs the bronchi to the throat and is swallowed again.
• It is one of the most widespread human parasitic infections on the planet, tied to a lack of sanitation, and in children with heavy infections it causes malnutrition and stunted development.
• It is the commonest human parasitic nematode: it is estimated to infect hundreds of millions of people, above all where sanitation is lacking.
• The female reaches 35 cm and lays up to 200,000 eggs a day, which pass out in the faeces and can survive for years in the soil.
• Its journey through the body is a long one: the larva hatches in the intestine, crosses the wall, travels in the blood to the lungs, climbs the bronchi to the throat and is swallowed again to settle in the intestine as an adult.
• That passage through the lung causes coughing and pneumonitis, symptoms that appear before the digestive ones.
• The WHO includes it among the soil-transmitted helminthiases, a group of neglected tropical diseases tackled with periodic mass deworming.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - no rigid skeleton (hydrostatic skeleton beneath the cuticle)

Habitat and environment

A parasite: the human small intestine; contaminated soil

Litter / clutch size

Up to 200,000 eggs a day per female

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascaris_lumbricoides