A French gardener discovered that larvae were present in his right eye which had been itching for several hours.
- The presence of the larvae on the cornea caused conjunctival hyperaemia (dilated blood vessels), but no signs of abrasion were observed.
In France, a 53-year-old man went to the emergency room of the Saint-Étienne University Hospital because he was suffering from itching in his right eye and felt that something had entered his eyeball. The patient stipulated that this happened after tending to his garden which was near a sheep farm. After several examinations, the doctors diagnosed him with external ophthalmomyiasis. Clearly, a dozen fly larvae were found on his cornea.
Larvae on the cornea due to female flies
According to the practitioners, who took photos and videos to visualize the movement of the maggots, these larvae are present in the eye of the 50-year-old because of female flies. The latter usually lay eggs in the nostrils of sheep. Once deposited, the larvae move to the sinuses, where they stay, feed on mucus and turn into maggots. After a few weeks, they drop from the nose to the ground, where they complete their maturation process and become adult flies.
In this case reported in the review The New England Journal of Medicine, the female flies laid their eggs in the gardener’s eye. Health professionals at Saint-Étienne University Hospital had to remove the larvae present in the patient’s eye one by one using tiny tweezers. The man had to take several antibiotics to prevent an infection. Ten days later, the patient returned to the hospital again for follow-up and was found to have no eye damage.
