Fears liver rot going unnoticed

THERE could be more people with the rare parasitic disease liver rot who have just not been diagnosed, according to Dr John Black, the infectious diseases specialist who diagnosed two women on the Garden Route last year.

One of the women has since died.

Both had been infected after eating raw, organically grown watercress.

Black recently published a case study of the two women who were both infected with liver flukes – a parasitic infection last reported in South Africa in 1964.

He said the disease might be completely asymptomatic and in those who did have symptoms, there was very little that distinguished it from many other diseases.