Creeping
For individuals reveling in—or at least attempting to appreciate—Thanksgiving in the United States, you can express gratitude that these worms are absent from the region; they are native to the “Old World,” specifically Europe, Africa, and Asia, as noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are frequently encountered in the Mediterranean area, but recent years have indicated that they appear to be spreading into new regions of Europe—especially toward the east and north. In a report from earlier this year on cases in Estonia, researchers observed that it is also surfacing in Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland.
Experts attribute the worm’s gradual spread to climate change and globalization. However, in another report this year of a case in Austria (believed to have been contracted while the patient was on holiday in Greece), researchers also put forward the idea that the worms may be evolving to utilize humans as a definitive host. Researchers in Serbia proposed this in a 2023 case report, where an infection resulted in microfilariae in the patient’s bloodstream. The researchers speculated that such instances, deemed uncommon, could be on the rise.
Currently, individuals in America have fewer concerns. D. repens has not been detected in the United States, yet it does have some relatives that sometimes appear in humans, including D. immitis, which causes dog heartworm, and D. tenuis. The latter can result in similar cases to D. repens, with worms migrating under the skin, especially near the eye. Thus far, this worm has primarily been located in raccoons in Florida.
For those who do encounter a worm wriggling through their skin, the prognosis is typically favorable. Treatment involves the surgical extraction of the worm, which largely resolves the issue, along with anti-parasitic or antibiotic medications to ensure the elimination of the infection or any accompanying infections. In the case of the woman, her symptoms vanished after physicians removed the worm from her eyelid.
