After several months of symptoms, a 60-year-old discovers that he has contracted a parasitic infection. The doctors give him bad news: it’s all his wife’s fault…
Parasitic infections are never easy to live with, so imagine learning that they are due to your partner’s affairs? This is what happened to a 67-year-old man, admitted to Dijon hospital, because of liver pain and high fever, whose story is told by BMJ Case Reports. The man also reports chronic intestinal pain over the past six months that several treatments prescribed by his doctor have not eliminated. A sample of his feces will test positive for the parasite entamoeba histolytica. For doctors, the man contracted this parasitic infection after having sex with his wife.
E. histolytica is a parasite that lives in the feces of humans and other primates. Although it normally remains confined to the intestines, it can sometimes reach the bloodstream and affect organs such as the liver and the brain. Most humans contract it by drinking unsafe or dirty water or by eating food that has previously been in contact with feces.
A parasite present in tropical rural areas
the parasite entamoeba histolytica is often found in tropical countries with poor sanitary conditions, especially in rural areas. This is where the twist of the story lies: the doctors discover that the man has never traveled outside of Europe. His wife, however, traveled extensively in Latin America, India, Burma, Vietnam and Laos. As the diagnosis progresses, it becomes clear that she had sex with a man with intestinal amebiasis, but that no symptoms ever appeared in her. These circumstances lead doctors to conclude that the parasite entamoeba histolytica was transmitted by sexual intercourse between the man and his wife.
Sex between men is considered a risk factor in the transmission of this parasite, as are sexual practices from anal to oral. The study reports that very few cases of heterosexual transmission have been recorded. Yet, in this specific case, the doctors simply note that the transmission was via heterosexual intercourse between this man and his wife, who was a carrier of the parasite.
It is therefore possible that the parasite entered the woman’s bloodstream and was transmitted during the sexual act, probably via anal to oral practices. Anyway, the couple was treated with metronidazole and tiliquinol-tilbroquinol and the man’s symptoms resolved within 48 hours. Two months later, the couple tested negative for the presence of the parasite entamoeba histolytica. All’s well That ends well.
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