Taenia asiatica Peculiarities

This tapeworm species has a lifecycle like T. solium involving humans as final and pigs/wild boars as intermediate hosts, where the very tiny (~2 mm) cysticercus is found in the liver. The gravid (= terminal) proglottids are very similar to those of Taenia saginata , while eggs are similar to both human Taenia species. The geographic distribution of this tapeworm comprises exclusively Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The pathogenicity for humans of the adult worms appears low; symptoms are mostly unspecific and become only rarely severe. The dramatic occurrence of cysticerci in the brain of humans (as it occurs in T. solium) has not yet been proven. However, numbers of diseased people are high, and economic losses due to infected pigs are very important.