A 20-year-old woman recently visited Dr Anoop Ravi at the Manjeri Medical College with severe itching in her eyes. Despite seeking treatment at various hospitals and taking many medicines, her condition remained the same. In a detailed eye examination, Dr Anoop Ravi found a live worm between the eyelid and the skin, reported Manorama Online. The worm on the left eyelid moved between the skin to reach the right eye. A small incision was made on the eyelid to extract the live worm, which was 16 cm long. Meanwhile, the worm has been sent for the exam to identify it. Last week, Dr Anoop and his team at the Majeri Medical College extracted a live worm that belonged to the dirofilarial category from another woman’s eye. The live worm that was extracted from the eyelid of the 60-year-old woman was 12 cm long.
What are dirofilarial eye worms?
According to the Centre for Disease Control, "Dirofilaria are long, thin parasitic roundworms that infect a variety of mammals. Infection is transmitted by mosquito bites." Interestingly, people with symptoms can have cough, chest pain, fever and excess fluid between lung and chest cavities. The CDC says that rarely, these worms were also found in humans outside lungs, including in brain, testicles and eyes.
