An X-ray revealed the ghastly "guinea worm" or dracunculiasis medinensis had split into two pieces, each a few centimetres long in his lower calf and foot.

Doctors believe that the worm may have been living inside the man since arriving from Australia four years ago.

The man, from Sudan, sought help for a swollen foot that had been painful for nearly a year.

Doctor Jonathan Darby, an infectious disease physician at St Vincent's Hospital, surgically removed the parasite from the 38-year-old man and found it to be the rare worm.

The parasite which can grow to great lengths, enters people's body through drinking water containing water fleas that have ingested Dracunculus larvae.

Commonly found in southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Ghana and Chad, female worms move through tissue in the abdomen and into the legs, feet or toes causing.

It then travels through the walls of its victims' intestines and digs through their body to try to exit out of a painful blister on their skin.