Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Arachnida: Ixodidae) larvae infestation of human eyelids. A rare case

Abstract

An 82-year-old female patient with painful, watery, and itchy eyes was admitted for examination at the Sri Guru Ramdas Institute of Medical Sciences and Research. During the examination, a number of tick larvae were found attached to the patient’s upper and lower eyelid margins. The ticks were manually removed and the patient was treated with topical ciprofloxacin eye ointment. Microscopic studies revealed that all specimens belonged to a single species Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus Canestrini (Acari: Ixodidae) which parasitizes livestock. Although other cases of ocular infestations have been reported, this is the first in North India involving R. (B.) microplus. It is speculated that the patient’s occupation, surrounding conditions and living propensities made her susceptible to contamination by ticks.

Ticks are unlikely to play a role in leprosy transmission in the Comoros (East Africa) as they do not harbour M. leprae DNA

“…Even though the ticks analysed in our study were collected from cattle and goats and not from humans, feeding of cattle ticks on humans seems probable in situations where humans and livestock live closely together. For both R. microplus and A. variegatum which mainly feed on cattle and other large animals ( 24 ), such cross-over events have been reported ( 25 – 27 ). A recent publication by Faber et al ( 28 ) is raising the hypothesis that a skin disease in water buffaloes described as lepra bubalorum could be caused by M. leprae and therefore act as animal reservoir.…”

Spotted fever group Rickettsia and Borrelia sp. cooccurrence in Amblyomma sculptum in the Midwest region of Brazil

“…in the tick Rhipicephalus microplus (Rezende et al 2016). However, this tick is closely related to livestock-related losses, and humans are considered sporadic hosts (Guglielmone et al 2006;Kaur et al 2019). It is important to note that all reports cited above represent ticks with no direct relevance to human parasitism.…”