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Myiasis

Is the infestation of bodily tissues by the larvae of flying insects. In Africa the tumbu fly and Lund's fly are responsible. Tumbu flies like to lay eggs on drying laundry and the larvae enter the skin when clothes are worn.

In Central and South America the human botfly and new world screwworm cause disease.

Human botfly affects people and cattle.

A botfly catches blood-feeding insect, lays eggs into it and that insect later injects the eggs into the human when it feeds.

These larvae usually stay where they penetrated.

After 12 weeks the larvae leave the skin and mature in soil.

New world screwworm flies lay eggs on the edges of wounds and healthy mucous membranes (mouth or nose) and the larvae then burrow in and incubate about 1 week.

Myiasis is a rare condition in travelers.

Symptoms are mainly itchy sores or oozing boils, but there are no long-term effects.

Sometimes maggots are seen by their air hole they create in the skin.

Closing the hole with Vaseline forces it closer to the surface, making extraction easier.

Myiasis links:

Insect Ecology and Veterinary Parasitology http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/insects/myiasis.html
Larve.com
Map & Graph: Countries by Mortality: Myiasis http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-B/mor_myi

Australia Department of Medical Entomology http://www.karlloren.com/biopsy/p49.htm

 

Our patient, Patrick had a new world screw worm in his scalp after having cut his scalp and then likely flies laid eggs into it.He has sent these pictures

Here are some images I took of the larva. I'm pretty confident its the 'New World Screwworm' or the larva of the dipteran fly Cochliomyia hominivorax