Russian forced to face her worm parasite

Creature first appeared living under her eye

First, it appeared as a tiny blemish under the eye.

But over the next two weeks, the 32-year-old woman watched it move — snapping photos as it formed bumps above her eye before it made its way down into her lip, forcing her mouth to swell.

It was a parasite — and it was living inside her face.

The case — and shocking images — were published in a report titled “Migrating Dirofilaria repens” in the New England Journal of Medicine, detailing a case in which a woman from Russia became host to a parasite through a mosquito bite.

The report states the woman, who was not named, started showing symptoms after traveling to a rural area not far from Moscow, where she “recalled being frequently bitten by mosquitoes.”

She experienced only occasional itching and burning as the worm slithered under her skin.

Dirofilaria repens is a long parasitic roundworm that is spread by mosquitoes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dirofilaria are usually found in dogs or other carnivores, according to the CDC, but have been known also to infest humans, especially in Europe and with certain species — D. repens, D. tenuis and D. immitis — better known as heartworm in dogs.

Thomas Nolan, director of the clinical parasitology laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, said mosquitoes ingest parasite’s undeveloped embryos — which then travel to the insect’s gut and mature into larvae.

The larvae then make their way into the mosquito’s mouth parts and, Nolan said, when the mosquito bites an animal — or a human — they crawl into the bite site.

Once in their new host, he said, the larvae mature into adult worms.

According to the European Society of Dirofilariosis and Angiostrongylosis, Dirofilaria repens appear in humans near the eyes — “eyelids and under the conjunctiva (in such a case the worm can be easily observed, sometimes actively moving), subcutaneous tissues (nodules) in the chest wall, upper and lower limb, neck and in other body regions” such as the genitals.

The case report’s lead author, Vladimir Kartashev, a professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Rostov State Medical University in Rostov-naDonu, Russia, said in an email that such parasites are an “emerging disease” in the western part of the former Soviet Union and in certain parts of Europe.

He said since 1997, there have been more than 4,000 human cases reported.

The CDC states D. repens — the species the woman in Russia had — is not seen in the U.S.; another species, D. tenuis, has been reported in North America but only in raccoons.

Doctors in Russia removed the woman’s worm.