At least 40 people in Beijing have been diagnosed as suffering
from a parasite-induced form of meningitis after eating raw or
semi-raw snails at restaurants.
It is the first time the so-called Guangzhou angiostrongylus
meningitis strain has been found in Beijing, according to the
Beijing Municipal Health Bureau's website.
The first case, involving a 34-year-old man, was reported by
Beijing Friendship Hospital (BFH) in June.
The patient suffered from unbearable headaches and nausea after
eating a dish of "cold snail meat" at Shuguo Yanyi Restaurant.
The dish was made from Amazonian snails and is popular in
Beijing's Sichuan-style restaurants. Doctors took
samples from the restaurant and found the parasite in two
snails.
As of last Thursday, 23 cases had been reported by BFH and other
hospitals in the capital since May, according to the bureau.
The patients had all eaten cold or spicy snail meat. According
to the bureau, five of the 23 were in a serious condition, three
had been discharged, and two had apparently recovered without
hospital treatment.
No deaths have been reported.
The youngest patient is a 13-year-old, who had a fever and a
stiff neck a day after eating an Amazonian snail salad and a spicy
snail dish in a branch of another restaurant chain called Sichuan
Legend.
All 23 patients had consumed snails at two restaurants, both
branches of Sichuan Legend. Doctors suspect a contaminated batch of
Amazonian snails was the cause.
According to Xu Rongman, a researcher with the Institute of
Microbiology and Epidemiology under the Academy of Military Medical
Sciences, each Amazonian snail acts as an intermediate host of
3,000 to 6,000 parasites, which can harm the human nervous system,
resulting in headaches, facial paralysis, meningitis and fever.
The Beijing Office of Food Safety issued an urgent notice on
Saturday, calling for tighter supervision over aquatic products and
safety inspection in supermarkets, shopping malls and restaurants.
The office also warned people against eating raw fish, shrimp,
snail, crab, frog and snake.
The snails have also been blamed for killing crops on more than
160,000 hectares in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The Amazonian snail, also known as "Fushou snail" in China, was
introduced in south China in the 1980s as a delicacy. However, the
snails bred rapidly and infiltrated lakes, brooks and ponds,
spelling disaster for local farmers because the snails ate every
seedling in the rice fields and stole bait from carp in
fishponds.
Moreover, the snail is highly resistant to toxic pesticides.
Farmers have to pick them up by hand and move them far from water
so that they shrivel to death or bury them. But such
labor-intensive methods have proven ineffective. Having run out of
options, farmers are appealing to scientists to find or breed a
natural enemy of the snail.
After local media reported the news, BFH received more than 90
people at the weekend, all worried that they might have contracted
illnesses having eaten snail dishes in the past two months.
Shuguo Yanyi has stopped serving the snail dish, and diners are
generally refusing to eat Amazonian snails. "After I heard that
Fushou snail could lead to meningitis, I decided not to order this
dish any more," said Wang Yingchao, 34.
According to the bureau, other seafood might also contain
parasites but the Amazonian snail has the ability to host more than
others.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2006)
