Scary flies can cause diseases for humans

Flies both play a role in transporting pathogens to humans, becoming dangerous epidemics and can directly cause disease.

According to Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Anh, a specialist in parasites, flies can directly cause maggots. The disease is caused by larvae of this insect. They parasitize and provide nutrition with healthy tissue, dead tissue or organic tissue in the host tissue.

Flies can transport pathogens to humans through the gastrointestinal tract.(Photo: Hoang Ha).

Human maggots can be found in many different places on the body with the following main manifestations:

1. Blood-sucking maggots : Only one Auchmeromyia luteola larvae depend on people in tropical Africa. The larvae feed at night on people sleeping in the tent.
2. Wound wounds : Open wounds that are not kept well will be a good place for flies to grow. Species most common in humans and animals are Lucillia sericata L.nobilis, Cochliomyia hominivorax and some species of Chrysomyia, Sarcophaga, Wohlfahrtia and Calliphora.
3. Warts of pimples: Caused by Cordylobia anthropophaga (Calliphoridae) and Dermaatobia hominis, Hypoderma spp. Parasitic worms are mainly in the lower and lower limbs, causing painful damage and often have corresponding lymph nodes. Pus-like lesions containing end-stage larvae will fall to the ground, causing scarring afterwards.
4. Maggots crawling under the skin: Caused by larvae of Gastrophillus and Hypoderma. The initial disease is a severe subcutaneous pain point, then the pain point moves to a continuous red line. Larvae can survive for many months on the host.
5. Moved acne maggots : Caused by stage 1 larvae of Hypoderma bovis, H.lineanum larvae. Initially, the patient is itchy and painful, sometimes very painful. Days after the injury disappeared and repeated shortly after. The pathway of larvae is clear red, sometimes edema, eventually forming a pus.
6. Prophylaxis - Prophylaxis: Occurs on a person with a normal nose or nose condition. Caused by Oestrus ovis, Rhinoestrus purpureus, Chrysomyia bezziana and Cochlyomyia hominivorax. Flies lay eggs in the nasal cavity, especially in people who come into contact with animals. The disease causes severe itching, unbearable aches, headache, nosebleeds, sore throat (when larvae enter the nasal cavity), which can cause meningitis symptoms, impaired vision when the larvae invade above .
7. Eye maggots: Occasionally rare, often complications of nasal maggots caused by Hypoderma (eyelid, outer part of the eye), Oestrus, Rhinoestrus, Gasterophilus, Dermatobia, Sarcophaga and Wohlfahrtia. Patients feel that there is something crawling in the eye, often with symptoms of conjunctivitis, sore eyes, opening of the eyelid hard, possible ulceration or blindness without treatment.
8. Earworm: Only occurs in people who have another disease in their ears, so it is less common. The disease is caused by Chrysomyia, Sarcophaga, Oestrus, Rhinoestrus . Patients with acute earache, itching. The larvae can penetrate the eardrum, invade the sinus cavity, the middle ear and the meninges cause pus to flow and cause the ear to smell bad.
9. Gastrointestinal maggots and urogenital tract: In humans, these two diseases are accidental, random. Gastrointestinal maggots are caused by swallowing raw, unripe food containing flies' eggs or larvae, damaged food with maggots or habit of eating food for maggots (how to make fish sauce in Vietnam). Genital urinary maggots caused by larvae traveling back from the urethra to the bladder cause pain.

According to Dr. Anh, in Vietnam, nose and ear maggots are sometimes seen in the departments or hospitals of ENT. Patients often have symptoms similar to sinusitis, external ear canal inflammation, middle ear infection, long-term self-treatment without new results to the hospital for examination.

To treat cases of maggots, the doctor needs to make an accurate diagnosis. Depending on the location, doctors will have appropriate treatment. Skin maggots can cut the larvae skin; nose section, eyes need surgical intervention; The gastrointestinal tract can use anthelmintic and flukes; The urogenital tract can flush the bladder to expel larvae.