Woman believed that the 60 roundworms on her eye came from touching a dog or cat and then touching her eye

In what must be an extremely rare case, a Chinese woman in China believed that the 60 roundworms that resided between her eyeballs and her eyelids came from either a dog or cat that she touched and then touched her eye thereby transferring larvae in the fur of either a dog or cat onto her eyes where the larvae hatched and became roundworms. Her eyes were itchy as a consequence.

Worms of the Filarioidea type. These can't have been the worms described in the news media as they are too long. Image: Wikipedia.

Doctors were shocked when they discovered around 60 roundworms, 40 from her right eye and over 10 from her left.

The doctors believed that she was infected by roundworms of the Filarioidea type which is transmitted to people to fly bites or mosquitoes as understand it.

The lava of these roundworms do not reside in dog and cat fur. And therefore, on my research, this woman did not get these roundworms above her eyeball in such large numbers from either a cat or dog but from a mosquito if the correct species of roundworm has been identified.

It is technically possible to acquire roundworms of the Toxocara canis variety by touching a dog that has roundworm larvae on their bodies and then touching the eye to transmit the lava from the dog to the person. However, the roundworms of the Toxocara canis species are around 15-20 cm long.

On that basis, it's impossible that this was the roundworm in the cited case because it would be impossible to have 60 of these worms residing in between the eyeball and the eyelid.

Clearly, these worms were very small and it would appear, therefore, that there were of an entirely different species because roundworms of the Filarioidea species are also much too long to reside in large numbers above the eyeball as stated. They can be 8 to 12 inches in length.

Therefore, the reporting in the news media is inaccurate but perhaps the lesson to be taken from this inaccurate reporting is that it is possible to acquire a roundworm infection from your dog as the eggs from the species are passed in the dog's faeces and can contaminate the dog's fur or the environment. The fur can be touched by the person and, as mentioned, transmitted to the person but it won't be these tiny worms described by the news media.

Source: www.daijiworld.com

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.