A new report published in JAMA Ophthalmology last Thursday shocked by showing the case of a woman who lived with a parasite in her eye for two years. The theory is that the parasite was acquired after she ate crocodile meat. The rare infection goes by the name of ocular pentastomiasis.
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According to the authors, the situation is so rare that it can be considered unprecedented in medical literature. This eye infection occurs because of parasites called pentastomids.
The parasite remained under the conjunctiva of the left eye - a thin, transparent mucous membrane that covers the white part of the eye and also the eyelids internally.
The patient has not been identified, but it is known that she is 28 years old and lives in Basankusu, Congo. The only symptom in this case was a lump in the corner of her eye.
On examination, the medical team saw that the lump could move! After it was surgically removed, this "mass" actually turned out to be a larva, which was then sent for analysis in the laboratory, where the discovery was made: a species called Armillifer grandis.
Parasite in the eye
It's a species that usually infects some people in Africa, and a little more rarely in other regions of the world.
Normally, according to the article, parasites of this species use snakes as hosts and lay their eggs in the respiratory tract. These eggs exit the lungs through the snake's mouth or digestive tract. See the image of the parasite revealed by the doctors:
Humans can become infected when they eat food or drink water contaminated with these eggs. Close contact with infected snakes (and eating snake meat) can also lead to exposure to the parasites.
As the patient had never eaten snake meat, but had eaten crocodile meat, the doctors concluded that this was the cause of the infection, as crocodiles can also be infected by pentastomids.
There are two possibilities: either the crocodile was infected, or the meat came into contact with infected snake meat in the supermarket and ended up infected as a result. The case reinforces the dangers of exotic food, as we have already seen in Tanzania, where eating turtle meat caused deaths.
Symptoms of pentastomiasis
Normally, these parasites invade internal organs and cause no symptoms. Still, this doesn't mean that these infections aren't dangerous, as they can lead to organ perforation, extreme immune reactions and even death.
Thus, this version of the parasite in the eye is even rarer. Eye infections are a much less common manifestation of the disease, but researchers recognize that they are easier to detect because they can cause visible symptoms such as redness, lumps and changes in vision.
