Uninvited guest: the giant parasitic worm evicted from Canberra woman's brain

29/08/2023 9 min
Uninvited guest: the giant parasitic worm evicted from Canberra woman's brain

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Episode Synopsis

INTERVIEW: A parasitic roundworm has been pulled from a woman's brain in Canberra in a startling medical first. Researchers at the Australian National University and the Canberra Hospital discovered the live eight-centimetre Ophidascaris robertsi roundworm after detecting an atypical lesion in the brain of a 64-year-old woman who had complained of memory lapses. The doctors believe the woman caught the worm when foraging for native grass close to her home, after it was shed by a carpet python through its faeces. SBS's Janice Petersen talks to Canberra hospital infectious diseases physician Dr Sanjaya Senanayake:

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