Why is a “passenger” from Africa dangerous, or What danger lurks in bananas. Worms and parasites in bananas - where do they come from and how dangerous are they? Worms in bananas are dangerous to humans
In the 21st century, you won’t surprise anyone with bananas, dates, feijoas and figs. Road for transportation exotic fruits has been open to the CIS countries for a long time. However, having done long haul from the equator to the countries of the post-Soviet space, goods deteriorate. Few people know that the reason for the danger of such fruits may not only be chemical treatment and long transportation. Among those who like to eat bananas, there are other representatives of the animal world. And they easily end up on our dinner table.
- Banana nematodes.
Other pests also cause harm to the fruit, but they do not pose a threat to us, since the banana dies even before transportation:
- Panama disease caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. Сubense. Bananas infected with this fungus die almost immediately.
- Sigatoka disease. The cause of the disease is the fungus Mycosphaerella musicola.
- Black weevil makes tunnels in bananas. But such fruits will never be sent for transportation.
Banana nematode
Is it worth eating such bananas and how dangerous is it?
Nematodes, multiplying in the human body, cause significant damage to his health.
Most often, the presence of larvae in the body can only be detected through tests. But if you listen to your body, you can notice some symptoms:
- Mood instability. Sadness often gives way to joy and vice versa.
- Fatigue.
- Pain in muscles, limbs.
- Weakening of the immune system.
- Nausea, vomiting.
- Malfunctions of the gastrointestinal tract.
- Itching in the genital area and anus.
As a result of damage to the body by nematodes, anemia and disorders in the immune system appear. In turn, this contributes to the infection of a number of other diseases. Especially in childhood.
The humpback fly leads to the appearance myiases. It can also become a carrier of cholera.
Myiases are diseases caused by fly larvae entering the human body. Eggs get under the skin, through the nose, eyes, mouth.
Cordyceps unilateral
Anisakids
A person runs the risk of becoming infected with these worms by eating poorly processed sea fish, shrimp, squid or octopus affected by them. The first infection with anisacidosis was recorded in 1955 in Holland, and the source was lightly salted herring.
If, while cutting up a fish, you see in it muscle tissue, there are “some kind of spirals” on the caviar or milk - either mercilessly throw away the delicacy, or freeze the fish to -20 degrees and keep it in this state for at least two weeks. With this treatment, the worms and their microscopic larvae will die. After this, you can safely eat the fish - however, the knowledge that it is “wormy” does not cause much appetite.
Wolbachia
sand flea
Wasp Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga
Vandelia Kandiru
Trichomonas
Leishmania
Tongue-eating woodlouse (Cymothoa exigua)
Trypanosoma
Toxoplasma
Blowfly Cochliomyia hominivorax
Hairy
Clostridium perfringens
The bacterium Clostridium perfringens can cause severe food poisoning and can also cause rapidly developing gas gangrene, in which tissue affected by the bacterium literally dissolves, releasing bubbles of foul-smelling gas.
Schistosoma
River blindness
Meningococcus
Tsetse fly
Guinea worm
The worm is common in Africa, India and the Arabian Peninsula. Microscopic larvae live in fresh water, and when the time comes, they attack animals and people, burrowing under the skin. Adult worms can reach 2 mm in thickness and 1 m in length. After mating, the male worms die, and the females move into the subcutaneous layer, drill through the skin, and when a person is in the water, they release the larvae through the hole.
Plasmodium
Naegleria fowlera
Leukochloridium paradoxical
Progress has firmly entered our lives, its fruits continue to spread more and more widely, and Kamchatka is no exception. If a couple of decades ago kiwi and pineapples were something unheard of on the peninsula, today neither exotic minola, nor figs and persimmons will surprise Kamchatka residents. But along with the abundance of fruit and vegetable gardens, uninvited guests also enter the region.
Artyom Zhukov, head of the department of phytosanitary examination and fumigation of the Kamchatka Interregional Veterinary Laboratory, spoke about precisely this “passenger,” which is widespread in the countries of Asia and Africa and was involuntarily brought to the peninsula.
The polyphagous humpback fly - Megaselia scalaris - is also common in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands, partly in Germany and Austria, the USA, Cuba, and Australia. The wide distribution of the species is facilitated by constant unintentional transfer on board aircraft and ships and in plumage migratory birds. Bananas, especially those that are overripe or transported in reusable, contaminated containers, and other fruits are usually the main route for the fly to spread.
- Artyom Nikolaevich, what does a “slant” look like and how is it dangerous for humans?
Megoselia scalaris - ( Latin name flies) are a species of dipterans from the humpback family. This is a saprophytic fly 2-3 mm long. It has a certain peculiarity: the flies move mainly in intermittent dashes, it may seem that they are jumping. And outwardly humpbacks resemble the common fruit fly- a red-eyed drosophila, but unlike it, the eyes are black, and the body has a clearly defined “hump-shaped” chest.
Humpback indicator
- Under what conditions and how quickly does the larva develop from the egg?
- Under natural conditions, Megaselia larvae with maximum length up to 5 mm are often found in contaminated foods: soy, flour, cheese, dried fish, rotting potatoes. Rotting plants and fungi, dead arthropods and mollusks, animal and human feces, as well as their corpses are the usual food environment for these insects. In addition, the larvae can even eat petroleum jelly and shoe polish.The humpback can damage ripe fruits, in particular bananas, and also harm mushroom plantations.
The development cycle of a fly from egg to adult insect is very fast: at a temperature of +28°C it is only 10-12 days, and the fertility of one female reaches 400 eggs. The development scheme under these conditions looks approximately like this: incubation of eggs - 1 day, development of larvae - 3-4 days, development of pupa - 6-7 days.
Due to good knowledge of the rate of development of larvae during different conditions, in forensic medicine Megaselia scalaris serve as indicators of the time elapsed since infection food products or the death of a person.
- How to protect yourself and your loved ones from contracting an exotic disease?
In addition to people, the larvae can also harm domestic animals. But the humpback fly is a heat-loving species, and the method of generally lowering humidity and temperature and installing sticky traps for adult winged insects works effectively indoors.
And measures to combat insects are simple. This is the implementation of basic hygiene rules: maintaining general cleanliness, eliminating corpses and waste products of animals, rotting fruits and plant debris.
Ekaterina Novikova
), but I’ve never seen these worms in person (friends told me about wormy Thai hairy bananas), and I literally just came across worms in Philippine hairy puffed bananas of the Cardava (Saba) variety! And not just one banana, but about ten. I still feel uneasy... it feels like I ate them before without noticing. After all, even tonight in the dark I ate these bananas, suspecting nothing. It seems that now I will develop a phobia regarding worms... From now on I will carefully inspect every banana. Usually worms are found under dark spots on the skin of a banana, but it is not at all necessary that under dark spot there will be a worm, this is rather rare, but under the perfectly smooth yellow skin there will never be a worm. And when worms eat a banana, its flesh will never be perfectly white; you can always see brown areas on it, sometimes holes and passages from worms. The worms themselves are small and white, well camouflaged to match the color of banana pulp. But they are very nimble, so they are easy to spot. Now I will always look to see if anything is moving in the banana.
These worms appear as a result of the fact that a fly pierces the banana peel and lays its larvae under it. Most often, worms attack thin-skinned bananas, and these same hairy bananas have very thick peel, so worms are rare for this variety, but you need to be careful. Especially when the bananas are at the perfect stage of ripeness. Look at the video and photos to see what these nasty white worms look like..
This is what the worm spot looks like in the peel:
And these are the worms on it:
