2ND CASE OF ZOONOTIC ONCHOCERCA INFECTION IN A RESIDENT OF OITA IN JAPAN

A non-gravid female Onchocerca was found in histopathological sections of a biopsy specimen taken from a painful nodule in the wrist of a 57 -year-old woman in Oita, in southern Japan. Six species of Onchocerca have been found in animals in Japan: two in wild bovids, one in equids , and three in domestic bovids of which one, Onchocerca sp., is only k nown by the microfilaria and infective stage. Distinctive morphologica l features of the warm, including a three-layered thick cuticle with p rominent annular ridges at wide intervals, high somatic muscles and na rrow lateral chords, resembled those of O. gutturosa, one of the three bovine Onchocerca species transmitted in the Oita region. However Onc hocerca sp., which is also transmitted in this region, cannot be exclu ded. An ELISA test of the patient serum suggests that infections by On chocerca spp. might be distinguished from those by Dirofilaria immitis , of which the number of human cases is increasing in Japan.