A family in the US have been infected with parasitic worms after they shared a meal including black bear meat kebabs in 2022, a new report has revealed.
The report, published by Centers for Disease Control (CDC) this week, said the group have since been diagnosed with trichinellosis, a parasitic zoonotic disease.
According to the Mayo Clinic, trichinellosis is a type of roundworm infection. The roundworm parasites (trichinella) use a host body to live and reproduce.
The website says the parasites infect animals like bears, cougars, walruses, foxes, wild boars and domestic pigs. People are infected by eating the immature form of the roundworm (larvae) in raw or undercooked meat.
The report said a 29-year old was hospitalised with suspected trichinellosis and was reported to the Minnesota health department.
His symptoms included a fever, severe muscle aches, periorbital edema or eye swelling, and eosinophilia or the condition of elevated levels of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell.
The report said a week before the symptoms appeared, the man and eight other people shared a meal including the meat of a black bear which had been frozen for 45 days. It was then grilled and served rare with vegetables that had been cooked with the meat.
Six people were diagnosed with trichinellosis, including two who only ate the vegetables.
The meat was “initially inadvertently served rare, reportedly because the meat was dark in colour, and it was difficult for the family members to visually ascertain the level of doneness”.
"After some of the family members began eating the meat and noticed that it was undercooked, the meat was recooked before being served again."
The CDC said that six days before the initial patient developed symptoms, he and eight extended family members from Arizona, Minnesota and South Dakota were in South Dakota for several days.
During their stay, they ate the meat from a black bear which had been harvested by one of the family members in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, earlier in 2022.
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