Human case of Onchocerca lupi infection, Germany, August 2014

Abstract

Onchocerca lupi, a nematode parasite infecting dogs and cats with a hitherto unknown arthropod vector, is also being recognised as a parasite also responsible for human eye infections. Here we describe a case of human eye infection diagnosed molecularly by nematode 12S rDNA PCR in a German patient who had travelled to Tunisia and Turkey. The patient recovered after treatment with antibiotic and anti-inflammatory therapy.

The Emergence of ZoonoticOnchocerca lupiInfection in the United States – A Case-Series

“…The patients presented with conjunctival redness that was painless, painful, or pruritic. A subconjunctival nodule containing the adult parasite was found in all patients [10–15]. These eye manifestations are similar to what has been seen in dogs but are distinct from O. volvulus (river blindness) infection.…”

“…In this case series, 2 patients were infected with gravid females, and a third patient with more than 1 female worm. There are 2 cases in the literature where multiple worms were found [14, 15]. Onchocerca lupi appears to lack the host-specificity found in many other filarial parasites.…”

“…At the time of the report, there were approximately 20 case reports of zoonotic Onchocerca infection in the English-language world literature; 5 were attributed to O. lupi [10–13]. Since the report, 2 additional cases have been identified elsewhere [14, 15], and 5 additional cases have been identified in the United States.…”

“…Human case reports of infections identified outside the United States have described patients with eye manifestations [10–15]. The patients presented with conjunctival redness that was painless, painful, or pruritic.…”

Diagnostic challenges and the unwritten stories of dog and cat parasites

“…This infestation has been occasionally reported in symptomatic dogs from Hungary, Greece, Germany and Portugal (Széll et al, 2001;Komnenou et al, 2002;Faísca et al, 2010;Hermosilla et al, 2005;Sallo et al, 2005) and, more recently, in dogs and cats from Arizona and Colorado, the United States (Labelle et al, 2011(Labelle et al, , 2013. Since the first report of human ocular infestation in 2011 (Otranto et al, 2011b), within less than four years, up to 10 human cases of O. lupi have subsequently been described in patients from Germany (Bergua et al, 2015), Turkey (Otranto et al, 2011b;Ilhan et al, 2013), Tunisia , Iran (Mowlavi et al, 2013) and the United States (Eberhard et al, 2013;Dudley et al, 2015;Chen et al, 2015), which has stimulated the interest of the scientific community on this parasite. For example, in the United States, veterinarians must now report canine onchocercosis within seven days of the first identification (http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/vet/ docs/AnimalReportList2013.pdf).…”