Parasites Doctors removed 14 worms from the eye of a woman

Medical sensation: Doctors remove 14 worms from the eye of a woman

In the US, a woman's doctors have removed 14 worms from her eye. The sensational thing about it: It was the first time that the type of eyeworm normally found in cattle was observed in humans.

Worms in the eyes

It is not commonplace, but it sometimes happens that worms are discovered in humans. Last year, for example, a teenager in Mexico had a live eye worm operated on, causing serious damage to the boy's eyesight. The year before a video on the Internet caused a great stir, on which a woman with a living worm was seen in the eye. However, the case in which a woman from the United States several worms were removed from the eye, but represents a medical sensation dar. Because the worm species was first observed in humans.

A woman from the USA was removed 14 worms from the eye. The worm had never been found in a human being before. (Image: vchalup / fotolia.com)

Medical sensation

Abby Beckley of Oregon was fishing in Alaska when she felt something in her left eye.

"It felt like a pounding eyelash," she told National Geographic magazine. But the 26-year-old could not find any hair and was annoyed for days by the foreign body sensation in the eye, until she finally withdrew her eyelid and pulled on the inflamed skin underneath.

As she looked at her hand, she realized, "There was a worm on my finger." As physicians later discovered, this was not just some worm, but the eyefly Thelazia gulosa, which actually only affects cattle.

The US-American was the first person in the world to become infected with this worm, according to the journal "American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene".

Expert used 90 years old research work from Germany

When the 26-year-old stared at the worm in her hand in the summer of 2016, she did not know anything about the sensation.

The small, almost transparent parasite wiggled for a few seconds and then died. As Beckley had seen similar-looking worms in salmon, she thought at first that she might accidentally have put the little creature in the eye.

But it did not stop at the one worm; As she noted more and more, the woman went to a doctor in Alaska, but he could not tell if the worms were dangerous.

So she decided to return to her native Portland, Oregon, and went to the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), where ophthalmologists managed to get one of the worms out of Beckley's eye, and the one to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

CDC director Richard Bradbury said, "If they do not know what it is, it lands on our table," National Geographic said.

To the find in Beckley's eye, he said: "All these parasites are rare, and this is extremely rare." According to the information, he had to excavate a German research paper from 1928 to finally identify the species as Thelazia gulosa.

So it was the third kind of Thelazia that appeared in one human eye with one species in Asia and one in California.

Patient is well again

The worms are transmitted by face flies, which feed on the tears of cattle, horses and dogs.

How the worms got into Beckley's eyes is still a mystery, but Oregon Health & Science University's infection expert, Erin Bonura, suspects that it may have happened when she walked past cattle pastures.

Over the course of 20 days, Beckley removed 14 worms from her eye. However, the physicians involved in the case agree that these eye worms pose no threat to public health.

Beckley's worms have left no lasting damage. One and a half years later, she found it even hard to remember in which eye the worms had been. (Ad)