Can you eat walrus meat

Freezing or fermenting walrus meat will not kill the parasite, but cooking will kill it, the GN said. After a big trichinosis outbreak in Repulse Bay in , the GN set up a program where people can send walrus tongue samples to a lab in Kuujjuaq to be tested. Nunavut and Nunavik have seen many outbreaks of trichinosis: in Salluit in , when 42 people fell ill; in , when 34 in Qikiqtarjuaq became infected; in , when 12 hunters sickened in Kangiqsualujjuaq after eating barbequed black bear meat, and in when two people fell ill with trichinosis in Kuujjuaq, and 50 in Cape Dorset.

News Aug 17, — pm EDT Cook walrus before eating, Nunavut health officials warn Igloolik Patients with trichinosis symptoms must go to health centre. Share This Story. In the recent cases, a girl in mid-August reported pain and swelling in her legs, difficultly walking, an itchy rash, fever and muscle pain.

Blood tests found that she, her brother and her father had a parasitic infection. All three had eaten walrus on July 17 that was pan-fried to "medium. In September, staff at a Nome hospital treated the girl's uncle and aunt about a week after they ate raw walrus.

Alaska health officials counseled them and noted that the parasite in Arctic species can't be killed by smoking, drying or fermenting the meat.

The outbreak prompted a public service campaign warning of trichinosis before the spring walrus hunt. In May, as the campaign began, state health officials were notified of an outbreak in a Norton Sound coastal community miles kilometers from the first village. A man suffering severe muscle and joint pain received treatment in Nome.

He and four people from neighboring households had shared walrus boiled for an hour, which fully cooked the exterior but left the interior undercooked or raw, a taste and texture many people prefer. Two people tested positive for trichinosis. Story highlights Alaska has had two trichinellosis outbreaks in the past year from walrus meat, CDC report says The disease is caused by eating raw or undercooked meat of animals infected with a worm called Trichinella.

Alaska has had two outbreaks of trichellosis over the past year, which is a disease caused by ingesting animals that eat meat, namely walrus, according to a report published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The infection, also known as trichinosis, is caused by eating the raw or undercooked meat of animals that are infected with a worm called Trichinella, according to the CDC.

The worm is typically found in pork as well as wild game such as bear and mountain lion. Trichinellosis cannot be spread through human contact. Many residents of coastal communities in northern and western Alaska consume walrus and other marine mammals as part of subsistence hunting, or hunting for survival.

This tradition is critical to their nutrition, food security and economic stability, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Read More. Parasites could be lurking in your sushi, doctors warn. All 10 people affected in the Alaska outbreaks have recovered. If a human or animal eats meat infected with Trichinella cysts, the CDC says, their stomach acid dissolves the hard covering of the cysts, releasing the worms, which then pass into the small intestine. The worms mate and lay eggs that develop into immature worms, which travel through the arteries and into the muscles.

There, they curl up and return to their original cyst formation, and the life cycle continues. The first symptoms of trichinellosis can include abdominal issues such as nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain.

Further symptoms may include headaches, fevers, chills, cough, facial swelling, aching joints and muscle pain, caused by inflammation in the muscles from the worms burrowing through. Tourists are not at risk of getting the infection from eating walrus, Springer said, because consumption takes place solely in coastal villages.

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, only Alaska Natives are allowed to hunt and consume walrus, polar bears and several sea species, according to the report. It is not commercially available or served at restaurants. That's part of recreational hunting," Springer said.

So, yeah, those folks should definitely be aware of the risk of exposure. Anyone in the lower 48 who hunts and consumes wild game -- including bear, boar and mountain lion -- is susceptible, Springer said. Trichinellosis and its impact.

Trichinellosis used to be more common in the US, mostly caused by the ingestion of undercooked pork, according to the CDC. The number of cases began to decline in the midth century, after better sanitation management was implemented in the pork industry. US salmon may carry Japanese tapeworm, scientists say.