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A potentially fatal disease rarely seen here has popped up in Houston four times in the past two months. It's linked to tapeworms and their eggs.

The victims were treated at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.

One of them was Renaldo Ramirez.

The 50-year-old ate at mobile kitchens until he found out food contaminated with eggs from a tapeworm almost killed him.

"He's scared now. He's scared of any food from outside," said Marjorie, his daughter and translator.

The tile worker immigrated from El Salvador 20 years ago said the early symptoms were subtle.

"It was a mild headache but it wouldn't go away," Marjorie explained. "It was just there and it wouldn't go away with Tylenol."

Doctors at a clinic gave him medicine for high blood pressure.

A few days later Ramirez passed out and didn't wake up for eight days.

"This is a picture of the cyst," said Dr. Aaron Mohanty, a UT Houston Medical School neurosurgeon.

Dr. Mohanty found the cyst with tapeworm larvae in Ramirez's brain.

It's a disease called cysticercosis.

"If they delayed 12 hours, six to 12 hours more he would not have survived," said Dr. Mohanty. "He was deeply unconscious."

This was Mohanty's fourth case in two months of a disease most often seen in developing countries.

"I think it's just a chance factor," said Dr. Mohanty.

In all four patients the UT Houston neurosurgeon removed the cysts through a small incision in the brain.

The disease can take years to manifest inside the body making it difficult to pinpoint where the patient ate the contaminated food.

"The cycle starts with a human that's infected with the tapeworm," said Dr. Luis Ostrosky with the UT Houston Medical School.

Dr. Luis Ostrosky tells us the eggs from a tapeworm are spread by a human host who doesn't practice good hygiene after using the bathroom.

An unsuspecting victim then eats the contaminated food.

"These eggs hatch in the intestine and go through the gutwall and into the circulation and get stuck somewhere," said Dr. Ostrosky.

Since a cyst was removed from his brain six weeks ago, Renaldo Ramirez has learned to cook his own food. But he still isn't well enough to go back to work.