Pork Worm

• GeneralIt is why the meat of wild boar and farmed pigs has to be tested before it is eaten.
• The larva does not destroy the muscle cell it invades: it reprograms it into a nurse cell surrounded by new blood vessels, an extreme case of host manipulation.
• Salting, smoking and curing do not destroy the encysted larvae, contrary to what is often believed.
• It is a parasite that never needs to leave the host: adults and larvae live in the same animal, and transmission happens only when another eats its raw flesh.
• The larva encysts inside a muscle cell that it transforms completely, turning it into a nurse cell that feeds it for years.
• Trichinosis is contracted by eating raw or undercooked pork or wild boar. In Spain, veterinary inspection of game is compulsory precisely for this reason.
• The symptoms are fever, severe muscle pain and swelling of the eyelids, which appear as the larvae migrate into the muscle.
• Trichinoscopic inspection of pork, compulsory since the nineteenth century, is one of the oldest food safety measures still in force.

Habitat & environment

A parasite: the muscle of pigs, wild boar and people

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