Everything You Should Know About Onchocerciasis (River Blindness)
What is onchocerciasis?
Onchocerciasis or river blindness is a disease that affects your skin and eyes. It is caused by a parasite named onchorerca volvulus. It is spread to humans and livestock from the bite of blackflies from the Simulium family that is often found near rivers and streams. This is how the disease got its name river blindness. Before we move forward, let’s know about the symptoms of river blindness in the first place. River Blindness can be treated by the use of Ivermectin Uk buy.
Symptoms of River Blindness
People with river blindness often go through several stages. You may notice any symptoms during the earlier stage as it takes up to a year for symptoms to develop and the infection to intensify.
Once the infection gets severe, patients may experience symptoms such as skin rashes, extreme itching, bumps under the skin, itching of the eyes, and loss of skin elasticity. Some more severe symptoms include changes in skin pigmentation, light sensitivity, enlarged groin, cataracts, and loss of vision. Swollen lymph glands have also been noticed in patients in rare cases. Now that we know about the symptoms of river blindness, it is also imperative to know what causes the disease in the first place.
Causes of River Blindness
One can catch river blindness if they are bitten repeatedly by infected female blackflies. The blackfly passes the larvae of worm onchocercidae when they bite a person. After that, the larvae move to the subcutaneous tissue of the skin and mature into adult works within six to twelve months. When a female blackfly bites an infected person with onchocerciasis, it also ingests the parasite along with the patient's blood. As a result, the cycle keeps on continuing.
An adult worm has a longevity of 10 to 16 years and can produce millions of microfilariae during its lifetime. Microfilariae are also known as the larvae of worms.
Who Has More Risks Of Getting River Blindness?
Anyone living close to fast-running streams or rivers in intertropical areas has the chance of developing river blindness as blackflies often live and breed in these areas. Around ninety percent of cases of river blindness are reported in Africa with some cases also identified in Yemen and six countries in Latin America.
The likelihood of casual travelers getting the disease is low as one needs to get bit repeatedly by infected blackflies to get the disease. Residents, volunteers, and missionaries in Africa are more at risk of getting the disease.
How to diagnose river blindness?
The doctor will feel the skin to identify any presence of nodules. They will also conduct a skin biopsy where they will remove 2-5 mg samples of the skin and place them in a saline solution. If it’s infected, then the larvae will emerge. To ensure the disease, doctors may take multiple snips around six from different parts of your body.
An alternative test to identify river blindness is the Mazzotti test, where a patch of skin is tested using the drug diethylcarbamazine (DEC). The drug kills the microfilariae which lead to severe symptoms.
River blindness is often treated with Ivermectin, which works wonders on the disease. Ivermectin is known to reduce the occurrence of blindness and the reoccurrence of severe skin symptoms. The dose of Ivermectin for river blindness is decided on the body weight of the patient or as determined by your doctor. The usual dose is 150 mcg per kg of body weight. For instance, if your weight is between 65 to 85 kg, doctors may prescribe 4 tablets to take as a single dose. The treatment may be repeated every 3 to 12 months or as decided by the doctor.
