Tapeworm Infection

Tapeworm infection is caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with tapeworm eggs or larvae. If you ingest certain tapeworm eggs, they can migrate outside your intestines and form larval cysts in body tissues and organs (invasive infection). If you ingest tapeworm larvae, however, they develop into adult tapeworms in your intestines.

The first case of human diphyllobothriosis was documented in Argentina in 1911, in a young Russian immigrant who had just arrived in the country. The second case was reported as late as in 1950 from Chile and was attributed to the infection of introduced rainbow trouts (Oncorhynchus mykiss) due to water contamination with tapeworm eggs shed by tourists and immigrants from North America.