Trichinosis
(trichinellosis)

What is trichinosis?
Trichinosis is a disease caused by a parasitic intestinal roundworm called Trichinella spiralis.

How do you get it?
You can get trichinosis by eating raw or undercooked meats (chiefly, pork and pork products), infected with the roundworm larvae. You can also get it from eating undercooked wild game meat or inadequately smoked pork products. Person-to person transmission does not occur.

What are the symptoms of trichinosis?
The symptoms are highly variable and can range from inapparent infection to severe disease or death. Muscle soreness, pain, and retention of fluids in the upper eyelids are a characteristic early sign of infection. Other symptoms include thirst, profuse sweating, chills, diarrhea, weakness, and high fever.

When do symptoms start?
The symptoms usually start 8 to 15 days after eating meat infected with the parasite. However, symptoms can appear as early as 5 days to as late as 45 days, depending on the number of worms ingested.

What is the treatment for trichinosis?
There are antiparasitic medicines that a doctor can prescribe to kill the adult worms and their larvae.

How can you keep from getting it?
Fresh pork, pork products, and meat taken from wild game animals should be cooked until internal temperatures reach at least 171°F, or until the meat changes from a pink to gray color. Cooked poultry, stuffed meat, and all stuffing must reach a minimum internal temperature of at least 165°F, to kill any Trichinella larvae.

Be aware that microwave ovens may produce uneven internal temperatures when cooking meats. Thus, when cooking pork, ham, sausage, and bacon in a microwave oven, heat to a minimum internal temperature of 171°F. Also be aware that meats cooked in BBQ smokers may not reach a high enough internal temperature to kill the parasites.

Grind pork in a separate grinder, or wash the grinder carefully before and after processing other meats.

When purchasing ground meat, be sure that the meat grinder used in grinding the meat was properly washed and sanitized before use.

Freezing infected meats at -13 °F for 10 days or longer will also kill the parasite.