JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Health Ministry warns against eating ‘dangerous’ Giant African Snails

by

28 days ago
20250124
A Giant African Snail. [Image by MRTHOIF0 from Pixabay]

A Giant African Snail. [Image by MRTHOIF0 from Pixabay]

The Min­istry of Health is urg­ing the pop­u­la­tion to re­frain from eat­ing Gi­ant African Snails, warn­ing of se­ri­ous health com­pli­ca­tions that could re­sult in­clud­ing menin­gi­tis, which can be fa­tal in chil­dren.

The Min­istry is­sued the warn­ing in re­sponse to an ar­ti­cle in a dai­ly news­pa­per which re­port­ed that the snails were be­ing con­sumed and be­com­ing a del­i­ca­cy.

“The Gi­ant African Snail is known to be a ma­jor reser­voir host for the rat lung­worm (An­giostrongy­lus can­to­nen­sis), which may cause menin­gi­tis—in­flam­ma­tion of the mem­brane sur­round­ing the brain and spinal cord,” the Health Min­istry’s bul­letin said.

It not­ed that hu­mans may be­come in­fect­ed by in­gest­ing raw or in­ad­e­quate­ly cooked snails.

“In­fec­tions in chil­dren tend to be of greater sever­i­ty and are of­ten fa­tal,” the Min­istry stat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, these snails al­so can be reser­voirs for bac­te­ria such as Sal­mo­nel­la, which can be the cause of food poi­son­ing.  It said im­prop­er han­dling or in­ad­e­quate cook­ing can lead to bac­te­r­i­al con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

“Some Gi­ant African Snails, be­cause of their feed­ing habits, might feed on plants or chem­i­cals that could leave tox­ic residues in their bod­ies, po­ten­tial­ly mak­ing them harm­ful if con­sumed. These tox­ins are not re­moved by any prepa­ra­tion or cook­ing,” the Min­istry ex­plained, stress­ing that they should not be eat­en.

It al­so strong­ly ad­vised those who col­lect snails as part of an in­te­grat­ed pest man­age­ment pro­gram to do so “with ex­treme cau­tion”, and in ac­cor­dance with guide­lines out­lined by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored