Information is being spread on social media that swimming in a pond where carp live is dangerous.
Photo: Mikhail FROLOV. Go to Photobank KP
Information is being spread on social networks that swimming in a pond where carp live is dangerous. They say that they can become infected with tapeworms and that their feces in the water can get into the mouth of the swimmer and infect a person with opisthorchiasis. Everyone refers to the words of biologist Yuri Manukov.
FROM CARACOS TO FISH, FROM FISH TO MAN
Komsomolskaya Pravda, as part of a joint project with Noodle Media aimed at exposing false information, decided to find out how things really are.
Of course, opisthorchiasis is a very dangerous disease that occurs when a parasitic worm (opisthorchiasis or Siberian fluke) enters the human body. The parasite “eats” the cells of the liver and pancreas ducts, so serious conditions develop over time. At the same time, in the initial phase the worm does not manifest itself in any way, although it is already actively reproducing.
A person can only contract the parasite through food: raw or undercooked fish. Not through water.
The fact is that the parasite that causes opisthorchiasis has a long reproductive path. This is what Rospotrebnadzor writes about it:
“A sick person or an animal infected with a worm (these can be cats, dogs, foxes and other animals) excrete eggs of the parasite in their feces. The eggs end up in bodies of water with sewage or sediment. There they are swallowed by freshwater snails, where the first stage of reproduction begins. Cercaria larvae emerge from the snails into the water. Cercaria penetrate carp fish and, when consumed, humans and mammals become infected.
On the body of each larva there are sensitive hairs that react only to the chemical composition of the mucus that covers the body of fish from the carp family, allowing it to “recognize” the type of fish it needs. The carp family includes 23 species of fish (ide, bream, carp, chebak, dace, tench, rudd, carp, goby, roach, minnow, asp, podust, etc.).
Consumption of raw, lightly salted, dried or insufficiently heat-treated fish from the carp family containing larvae, as well as non-compliance with personal hygiene rules when cutting and processing raw fish, lead to infections.
But it is impossible to contract opisthorchiasis by swimming in a pond or accidentally swallowing water! After all, intermediate stages of parasite development take place in water, which are not dangerous for humans.”
