Abstract

Onchocerciasis is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) caused by Onchocerca Diesing 1841 (Spirurida: Onchocercidae) nematodes transmitted by blackflies. It is associated with poverty and imposes a significant health, welfare and economic burden on many tropical countries. Current methods to visualize infections within the vectors rely on invasive methods. However, using micro‐computed tomography techniques, without interference from physical tissue manipulation, we visualized in three dimensions for the first time an L1 larva of an Onchocerca species within the thoracic musculature of a blackfly, Simulium damnosum s.l. Theobald 1903 (Diptera: Simuliidae), naturally infected in Ghana. The possibility that thicker peritrophic membranes in savannah flies could account for their lower parasite loads was not supported, but there were limits to our analysis. While there were no statistically significant differences between the mean thicknesses of the peritrophic membranes, in the anterior, dorsal and ventral regions, of forest and savannah blackflies killed 34–48 min after a blood‐meal, the thickness of the peritrophic membrane in the posterior region could not be measured. Micro‐computed tomography has the potential to provide novel information on many other parasite/vector systems and impactful images for public engagement in health education.

Highlights

  • Onchocerciasis is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) caused by Onchocerca volvulus (Leuckart 1893) (Spirurida: Onchocercidae) nematodes that are transmitted by blackflies, Simulium Latreille 1802 species (Diptera: Simuliidae)

  • We report here the visualization in three dimensions (3D) for the first time of an L1 larva of an Onchocerca species within the thoracic musculature of a blackfly, S. damnosum s.l., naturally infected in Ghana

  • Previous studies have shown that adult S. damnosum s.l. that have fed on humans infected with O. volvulus have a potential infection rate of 80% or more (Philippon, 1977)

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Summary

Introduction

Onchocerciasis is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) caused by Onchocerca volvulus (Leuckart 1893) (Spirurida: Onchocercidae) nematodes that are transmitted by blackflies, Simulium Latreille 1802 species (Diptera: Simuliidae). It is associated with poverty and so-called “resource poor” settings, where it can seriously reduce household productivity (Ibe et al, 2015) and it imposes a significant health, welfare and economic burden on many tropical countries. It has recently been seen as an emerging opportunity in parasite imaging, used to reveal parasitization of mice with the mouse whipworm, Trichuris muris (Schrank 1788) (Trichocephalida: Trichuridae), a nematode (O’Sullivan et al, 2018), as well as of ants infected with the lancet liver-fluke, Dicrocoelium dendriticum (Rudolphi 1819) (Plagiorchiida: Dicrocoeliidae) (Martín-Vega et al, 2018)

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