>The local warning is not to pick them up, as you supposedly can catch
>hepatitis from handling them?
 
I haven't heard that Achatina can transmit hepatitis, but they can transmit
a parasitic nematode, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, which causes the disease
meningoencephalitic angiostrongylosis. In other words, the nematodes bore
into your brain. According to Malek & Cheng (1974, Medical and Economic
Malacology) this disease has been reported from a number of Pacific islands
and in South East Asia. There is also abdominal angiostrongylosis, caused by
A. costaricensis.
 
The usual route of infection is consumption of raw or insufficiently cooked
snails (other hosts include Bradybaena similaris, Subulina octona and
veronicellid slugs), but I have heard getting the mollusk mucus on your
hands and then touching a mucus membrane can transmit the nematode.
 
Gary
 
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Gary Rosenberg, Ph.D.                     [log in to unmask]
Malacology & Invertebrate Paleontology    gopher://erato.acnatsci.org
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