Lymphatic Filariasis (Elaphantiasis)
...ding tissues. The most common, visible signs of infection are excessively enlarged arms, legs, genitalia, and breasts (“Lymphatic Filariasis”:1). At first, most people don’t know they have lymphatic filariasis. They usually don’t feel any symptoms until after the adult worms die. The disease usually is not life threatening, but it can permanently damage the lymph system and kidneys. Because the lymph system does not work right, fluid collects and causes swelling in the arms, legs, and, for men, the genital area. The name for this swelling is lymph edema. The entire leg, arm, or genital area may swell to several times its normal size. Also, the swelling and the decrease function of the lymph system make it difficult for the body to fight germs and infections. An infected individual will have more bacterial infections in the skin and lymph system. This causes hardening and thickening of the skin, which is called elephantiasis(“Lymphatic Filariasis”:2). Lymphatic filariasis affects over 120 million people in 73 countries throughout the tropics of Asia, Africa, the Western Pacific, and parts of Central and South America. A person cannot get the worms in the United States(Lymphatic Filariasis”:1). The worst symptoms of the chronic disease generally appear in adults, and in men more often than in women. In endemic communities, some10-50% of men suffer from genital damage, especially hydrocoele ( fluid- filled balloon-like enlargement of the sacs around the testes) and elephantiasis of the penis and scrotum. Elephantiasis of the entire leg, the entire arm, the vulva, or the breast, swelling up to several times normal size, can affect up to 10% of men and women in these communities. The psychological and social stigma associated with the disease are immense(“WHO Fact Sheet”:1). Acute episodes of local inflammation involving the skin, lymph nodes and lymphatic vessels often accompany the chronic lymph edema or elephantiasis. Some of these are caused by the body’s immune response to the parasite, but most are the result of bacterial infection of skin where normal defenses have been partially lost due to the underlying lymphatic damage. Careful cleansing can be extremely helpful in healing the infected surface areas and in both slowing and, even more remarkably, reversing much of the overt damage that has occurred already(“WHO Fact Sheet”:2). In epidemic areas, chronic and acute manifestations of filariasis tend to develop more often and sooner in refugees or newcomers than in local populations continually exposed to infection. Lymphoedema may develop within six months and elephantiasis as quickly as a year after arrival(“WHO Fact Sheet”:2). Materials and Methods: Literature search. Results: No numerical data. Discussion: Here, we will look at the diagnosis and community and individual treatments of lymphatic filariasis. Diagnosis: Until very recently, diagnosing lymphatic filariasis had been extremely difficult, since parasites had to be detected microscopically in the blood, and in most parts of the world, the parasites have a nocturnal periodicity that restricts their appearance in the blood to only the hours around midnight. The new development of a very sensitive, very specific simple “card test” to detect circulating parasite antigens without the need for laboratory facilities and using only finger-prick blood droplets taken anytime of the day has completely transformed the approach to diagnosis(“University of Zambia”:3). With this and the infection actually occu...