14 DAY TRIAL // A paper published in yesterday's issue of the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases documents the discovery of a 6,200-year-old parasite egg in a Mesopotamian tomb located in present-day Syria.
The egg is believed to have been laid by a flatworm known to the scientific community as Schistosoma, and it is argued to be one of the earliest evidence of parasitic infection in humans to have until now been uncovered.
Biological anthropologist Piers Mitchell says that several other eggs belonging to this species of parasitic worms were discovered before among human remains dating back to thousands of years ago, in recent history.
However, up until this discovery of this 6,200-year-old egg in the Mesopotamian tomb, the oldest of the bunch was a 5,200-year-old Schistosoma egg recovered from mummies unearthed in Egypt, Live Science informs.
In their paper in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, Dr. Piers Mitchell and fellow researchers explain that the 6,200-year-old egg was discovered inside a tomb that held the remains of a boy who was about 12 years old when he died.
More precisely, the egg was found while analyzing the soil around the boy's stomach and pelvic area, the University of Cambridge specialist and his colleagues go on to detail.
Since no other parasite eggs laid by ancient Schistosoma were discovered around these remains, it has been concluded that the egg came from inside the boy's body and was not simply present in the ground when the child was buried.
Dr. Piers Mitchell explains that, as surprising as this may sound, Schistosoma worms are still very much alive in today's day and age. Besides, it is estimated that they continue to infect about 200 million people annually.
Interestingly enough, worms belonging to this species that infect people in the Middle East tend to attack blood vessels in the kidney first and foremost. In Africa, on the other hand, Schistosoma worms that come to infect humans usually go for the bowels.
These parasites inhabit fresh waters and live on the bodies of snails until they find a human host and enter their body through the skin. Hence, it is believed that the 12-year-old boy ended up being exposed to this parasite due to the invention of irrigation.
Thus, it is argued that, shortly after farmers and their children started spending hours on end in water looking to irrigate their crops, the yearly number of infections with Schistosoma worms pretty much soared. This theory is backed up by the worm's behavior in present-day Africa.
“Studies in Africa in modern times have shown that farming, irrigation and dams are by far the most common reasons why people get Schistosomiasis,” Dr. Piers Mitchell with the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom explains.