Armillifer armillatusPentastomiasis in African Immigrant, Germany

Dennis Tappe,Paul Racz,Jakob P Cramer,Sven Poppert,Alexandra Haeupler,Hansjörg Schäfer

doi:10.3201/eid1903.121508

Abstract

<i>Armillifer armillatus</i>Pentastomiasis in African Immigrant, Germany

Highlights

To the Editor: Pentastomiasis is a parasitic zoonotic disease with an incremental number of reported human infections caused by larval stages of pentastomes [1,2,3]
We report an infection with A. armillatus in an African immigrant to Germany that was diagnosed by histopathologic analysis and confirmed by PCR
A presumptive diagnosis of visceral pentastomiasis caused by A. armillatus nymphs was made in accordance with the origin of the patient and the geographic distribution of the parasite

Summary

Introduction

To the Editor: Pentastomiasis is a parasitic zoonotic disease with an incremental number of reported human infections caused by larval stages (nymphs) of pentastomes [1,2,3]. These dioecious parasites produce large amounts of ova that are shed into the environment by snake feces and secretions. Humans become accidental intermediate hosts after uptake of environmental parasite ova or by consumption of contaminated snake meat. We report an infection with A. armillatus in an African immigrant to Germany that was diagnosed by histopathologic analysis and confirmed by PCR.

Results

Conclusion