New eye parasite found in a women’s eyes

By Eye Health Nepal Last updated Jun 3, 2021

Abby Beckley aged 28 of Oregon pulled living eye parasites herself while on a fishing trip to Alaska. Abby told to CNN that she felt like she had a stray lash under her eyelid. she told to CNN that her eye was red, swollen, and droopy.

she went to an eye doctor and he pulled more 4 worms out of her eyes. Total of 14 parasites was living in her eyes. The eye specialist sent worms to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In one study, scientists from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the case of an Oregon woman who represents the first known instance in the world of human infection with Thelazia gulosa, a type of eye worm found throughout the northern United States and southern Canada–but previously seen only in cattle. These eye worms are spread by flies that feed on the tears that lubricate the eyeball.

“Cases of eye worm parasitic infections are rare in the USA, and this case turned out to be a species of the Thelazia that had never been reported in humans,” said Richard Bradbury, PhD, the lead author of the study who works with the CDC’s Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria. “Previously, it was thought that there were only two different species of these (Thelazia) eye worms that infected humans worldwide. Now, we have to add Thelazia gulosa, a third one to the list.

Bradbury said the infection in the Oregon woman presented as a typical eye worm infestation. The woman first reported sensing an irritant in her left eye. About a week later, she removed a small, translucent worm. According to the study, a total of 14 worms–all less than half an inch long–were extracted from the woman’s conjunctiva and the surface of her eye over a two-week period before her symptoms ceased.

Eye worms, technically known as Thelazia, are found in a variety of animals–including cats, dogs, and wild carnivores like foxes. They are transmitted by different types of flies. Bradbury said most of the time, people who get these eye worms experience inflammation and the sensation that there is some type of foreign body in the eye. He said symptoms typically resolve, as they did for the Oregon woman, after the worms are removed. But he noted that occasionally, the worms will migrate across the surface of the eye and cause scarring of the cornea and even blindness.

Human infections with eye worms are most often seen in the elderly or in young children, given that both patient groups “may be less able to keep flies away from their faces.” The researchers suspect the woman encountered face flies, which also feed on eye secretions, while horseback riding and fishing in a coastal area of Oregon where cattle farming is common.

Several of the worms from the Oregon case were sent to the CDC’s parasitic disease reference laboratory, where examination identified them as cattle eye worms, which are spread by a type of fly known as face flies.

“We immediately thought it could be Thelazia californiensis because that is the only species that was known to infect humans in the U.S.,” said Bradbury. “It was only after we looked more carefully that we realized some differences in anatomy that meant it could not be T. californiensis. We had to go back to papers published in German back in 1928 to help identify this worm as Thelazia gulosa.”

“This case report underscores the importance of the public health work done by CDC’s parasitic diseases reference laboratory in diagnosing parasitic diseases in the United States and around the world,” said ASTMH President Regina Rabinovich, MD, MPH. “Their depth of expertise is unmatched and invaluable in the fight against parasitic diseases.”