Figure 1.
Annulated foreign body in the anterior chamber of the left eye from Case 1.
A, lateral view. The eye shows marked conjunctival injections and the foreign body fills the whole pupil blocking the eyesight completely. B, frontal view. The high number of annulations of the parasite is clearly visible.
Figure 2.
Extracted pentastomid nymph from Case 1, morphologically and molecularly identified as Armillifer grandis.
The nymph is still surrounded by its shed translucent cuticle (exuvia), a characteristic feature of pentastomid larvae as they moult in the intermediate hosts' tissues. A. grandis is the smallest of the zoonotic African Armillifer species with the most body annulations (9–15 mm body length and >25 annulations; A. armillatus, the nearest geographical neighbour for comparison: 12–23 mm length and 18–22 annulations (2). A. grandis is the least often encountered zoonotic Armillifer species worldwide. Scale bar = 3 mm.
Figure 3.
Local villagers often find pentastomids in snakes sliced for consumption.
Adult Armillifer armillatus (confirmed by 18S rRNA gene PCR) in the lung of a young Ball Python (Python regius) before consumption in Sankuru district, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes local people do not clean and cook the snake properly just spit out the parasites while eating, so the eggs may accidentally be swallowed. The ova may also contaminate snake meat during butchering. Unless properly cooked, an egg may hatch in the intestine of an accidental human intermediate host. While most larvae migrate to visceral organs, a few will make their way to the eye [1].
Table 1.
Epidemiological and parasitological characteristics of patients with ocular pentastomiasis reported in the literature, including current cases.
Table 2.
Clinical characteristics of patients with ocular pentastomiasis, including the current cases.