Doctors are perplexed at how a young Melbourne woman ended up with pork tapeworm larvae in her brain, despite never having left Australia and having little contact with animals.

The 25-year-old barista was diagnosed with neurocysticercosis (NCC), a central nervous system infection with the larval stage of the tapeworm Taenia solium. 

NCC is rarely found in affluent countries and usually occurs in regions when pigs, raised for human consumption, eat human faeces infected with the tapeworm. Humans can acquire the parasite by eating infected, undercooked pork.

This is the first recorded autochthonous case in Australia, but it’s important for doctors to be aware there could be other cases, write the doctors from the Royal Melbourne Hospital.