Trichinosis in South-west Ireland

Abstract
Since the large outbreak of trichinosis in Liverpool in 1953 there have been three outbreaks in Ireland, two occurring recently in Cork and Kerry, where a total of 76 cases was confirmed. In the outbreak of 50 cases in Kerry the latex trichina slide agglutination test was found to be valuable diagnostically and epidemiologically, while the efficacy of thiabendazole treatment was not established. This infection may be maintained as a reservoir in wild carnivores, occasionally spreading to pigs and perpetuated in them by a failure to boil pig swill.