Rat lungworm experts like Franny Brewer of the Big Island Invasive Species Committee believe education and awareness are key in preventing the disease.
To help spread awareness, Brewer teamed up with Kay Howe from the Hawaii Island Rat Lungworm Working Group and created a professional development course offered to state Department of Education teachers.
The course covers life cycles of the disease, along with its development stages and a variety of other tips for prevention that can be shared with students.
“The Puna to Hilo area is the hot spot in the world for the most severe cases of rat lungworm disease,” Brewer said. “Keeping kids safe when they’re teaching them to garden was a really high priority.”
So far, over 50 teachers have gone through the course that launched three years ago, and another 15 are currently enrolled.
Brewer described the results as a ripple effect that echoes throughout the community.
“We’re teaching teachers, and they’re teaching their kids, and then they’re going out and teaching their families, and you’re getting a lot of information out,” she said.
Teachers train from October to December, and then in January, they provide students with educational tools in and outside the classroom.
“At the end of the course, the teachers have to turn in a portfolio which includes lessons that they did with their students, examples of the student work, how they analyzed it, and how it ties into the standards they’re supposed to be teaching,” said Brewer. “The teachers can get very creative with how they want to encourage their students.”
One group of students in Kohala hosted a table at a community fair with hand-drawn posters and signs encouraging the public to ask questions about the disease, while another sixth-grade class gave lessons and performed skits for first- and second-graders about never touching a snail or slug.
Students also are encouraged to use digital tools to create interactive maps of their island or school where they can place the locations of the slugs and snails they have spotted.
While the program was originally designed for Big Island teachers, the COVID-19 pandemic made the classes virtual, opening them up to teachers throughout the state.
Rat lungworm infections commonly occur by consuming raw slugs or snails, but new data from the University of Hawaii at Manoa confirmed at least 32 species act as carriers for the parasite, 13 of which have been associated with causing rat lungworm in humans, including shrimp, crabs, fish, frogs, flatworms and other species.
The state Department of Health lists symptoms of nausea, fever, tingling sensations, followed by extreme neck stiffness and unremitting headaches. In severe cases, rat lungworm can result in death or paralysis.
While some symptoms can last between two and eight weeks, others have reported long-term complications including vision issues and ongoing headaches.
“When you first start learning about rat lungworm, no matter how calm it is presented, it leads to panic,” Brewer said. “It’s a really horrible disease, and it’s frightening because so many survivors will say they don’t know how they got it.”
In addition to courses for teachers, Brewer also hosts quarterly events in Hawaiian Paradise Park for the Puna community, which focus on specific rat lungworm risks to their region.
“Living here in Puna personally, this is something that was a huge health concern,” Brewer said of the disease. “I think 77% of people in Puna are on catchment systems, and if you are on catchment, it’s about making sure your filters are thoroughly cleaned and you replace them, and you’re using the best filtration system that would be most likely to catch most of the parasites.”
But a decrease in reported cases, now averaging roughly five a year for Hawaii, has encouraged Brewer.
“There are no fewer semi-slugs or less parasites here. All that risk is still the same, but people have changed their behavior, and because of that, you’re seeing lower disease,” she said. “That awareness really does have an impact here.”
Email Grant Phillips at gphillips@hawaiitribune-herald.com.