Fiocruz warns of snail-borne meningitis

If exposure to boiling water is not possible, the collected mollusks should be placed in a container such as a bucket or basin, and soaked in a solution prepared from one part sodium hypochlorite (bleach) to three parts water. After 24 hours of soaking, the solution can be spread out and the shells discarded.

Other important precautions include: not eating raw or undercooked shellfish, including land snails, slugs, and aquatic snails; and washing fruits and vegetables well, leaving them to soak for 30 minutes in a mixture of a liter of water and a tablespoon of bleach, then rinsing them well with running water before eating them.

In addition to providing guidance to the population, Fiocruz emphasizes the importance of municipal surveillance agents mapping the risks of infection, through the periodic collection of molluscs and sending them for parasitological analysis carried out by the IOC/Fiocruz Reference Service.

“There are few municipalities that regularly send samples for parasitological analysis. Vector surveillance services often need to focus their teams on combating epidemic diseases, such as dengue, and snail surveillance is left unattended,” says the coordinator of the reference laboratory, Elisangela Feitosa.

Nova Iguaçu is one of the cities where regular monitoring is carried out. “Generally, the population makes this appeal because of the inconvenience caused by the African snail. But, knowing that we have an emerging disease, we collect samples to monitor the parasites and explain to the population how to collect snails safely, to try to reduce or eliminate this vector,” explains the person in charge of disease surveillance in the municipality, José de Arimitia Brandão Lourenço.

In a note, the Rio de Janeiro State Health Ministry reported that it had not yet been notified by the Nova Iguaçu Municipal Health Department and that it had mobilized a technical team, on Monday (the first), to investigate the case.