Taenia solium, also known as the pork tapeworm, is a parasitic tapeworm that has infected more than 20 million people throughout the world, with a higher infection rate in countries that often eat raw meat, like some parts of Europe and Asia. The presence of Taenia solium is noticeably higher in Mexico, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Spain, and Portugal. On the other hand Taeniasis and cysticercosis are very rare in Muslim countries. T. solium's full classification is kingdom: Animalia, phylum: Platyhelminthes, class: Cestoda, order: Cyclophyllidea, family: Taeniidae, genus: Taenia, species: Taenia solium. .
The life cycle of the T. solium is as follows - gravid proglottids are passed in feces into soil or sewage where they can survive for days to months. Pigs can then be infected by eating the infected vegetation, after which the oncospheres hatch in the pig's intestine, burrow through the intestinal wall, and move through the circulatory system to the striated muscles where they become cysticerci. While in the pig, the cysticercus can survive for several years. A human can become infected by eating undercooked or unprepared pork. After infecting the human, the cysticercus spends 2 months developing into an adult tapeworm in the small intestine. The adult tapeworm can then survive for years, growing to 2-7 m in length. The cysticercus can also travel through the intestinal wall and infect subcutaneous and intramuscular tissues, such as the brain and eyes. From there cysticercosis will develop. In humans, cysticercosis has a variety of damaging effects on the central nervous system, vision, and brain functions. .
Infestation of Taenia solium can lead to weight loss, constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and other mild stomach symptoms. T. solium can also lead to cysticercosis, where larvae develops in the skeletal and cardiac muscles as well as the brain. Cysticerci in the brain (known as neurocysticercosis) is the most common parasitic infection of the human brain and it is known to cause seizures (including adult-set epilepsy), abnormal behavior changes, and brain lesions.
