Teenager gets a horrible hookworm infection after friends buried him in the sand



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A Tennessee mother warns people against the dangers of hookworm, a parasite that enters the skin after her son has been infected during a trip to a Florida beach [19659002]. Kelli Dumas wrote that his 17-year-old son, Michael, went on a mission to Florida in June, where his friends buried him in the sand at Pompano Beach "for fun". But the consequences were definitely not.

After He returned to Memphis, he began to develop a reddish rash all over his lower body. When he went to see a doctor, he was diagnosed with hookworm.

"It's horrible and it's so painful," she told Local Memphis. "He has gone through so much pain, I've posted this on Facebook to warn people that it can happen."

At least five other people from Michael's trip also contracted the hookworm, reported the local point of sale. Dumas noted in his Facebook post that his son had "the worst case, by far".

There are many species of hookworms, which live in the small intestine of humans or animals. The feces of an infected person or animal contain parasite eggs and the parasite spreads when feces enter the soil on the outside. Hookworm larvae are then able to penetrate the skin that comes in contact with them. People mostly contract the parasite by walking barefoot on contaminated soil.

Specifically, Michael was diagnosed with an infection caused by the animal hookworm, also known as a zoonotic hookworm, which means a species of hookworm that lives in the water. bowel of an animal. . The other main type of hookworm is the human hookworm, which means a species that lives in the intestines of humans.

Typically, zoonotic ankylostomiasis in humans results in skin infection, according to the CDC. In contrast, human hookworms infect a person's intestines and can lead to protein deficiency or anemia. And when the zoonotic ankylostomiasis infects animals, it can cause a potentially fatal intestinal infection in animals.

The CDC notes that while hookworms are found all over the world, zoonotic hookworms in the United States are more common on the east coast than on the west coast. Human hookworms tend to thrive in hot, humid climates.

The Florida Department of Health did not immediately respond to HuffPost's request for comment, even though a spokeswoman told USA Today that the department was reviewing the situation. ] Dumas told many media that treating his son, which cost thousands of dollars until now, included medications as well as cryotherapy, a treatment that "freezes" skin lesions. She said that he also needed to take other medicines to treat staph, a bacterial infection that he contracted in his wounds.

"I can not stress enough how traumatic it is for a teenager – and his mother – to know that worms live in his body," she told the Washington Post

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