American Hookworm

The American hookworm (Necator americanus) is a blood-feeding intestinal roundworm of humans. Despite the name it is thought to have originated in the Old World, and it is now the main hookworm in much of Africa, the Americas and Asia.

🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open American Hookworm in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Ecdysozoa lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.

Larvae in damp soil burrow through the skin, usually of bare feet, causing an itchy rash, and then migrate through lungs to the gut. Adults attach to the intestinal lining with cutting plates and feed on blood.

In 1909 the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission began a campaign against hookworm in the American South, treating people and promoting latrines and shoes. It helped establish public health programs in the region.

Hookworm vaccines are under development. Because hookworms suppress inflammation, small trials have tested deliberate infection with a low dose as a therapy for immune diseases such as celiac disease, with mixed results.

• Old World Hookworm — its relative
• Immunology — helminths and the immune system