Pork Tapeworm

A flat, ribbon-like parasitic worm typically two to three meters long, though it can exceed eight meters, anchored inside its host's intestine by a scolex bearing suckers and hooks. Humans serve as its definitive host and pigs as its intermediate host; people become infected by eating undercooked pork containing cysts, which mature into adult worms in the small intestine within ten to twelve weeks. It occurs worldwide but is most common where pork is eaten and sanitation is poor, particularly in Latin America, West Africa and Southeast Asia. Infection takes two forms, intestinal taeniasis, which is often symptomless, and cysticercosis, a more serious larval infection of body tissues that, when it reaches the brain as neurocysticercosis, is the leading cause of seizures worldwide.