Introduction to Diagnostic Medical Parasitology
- Key Diagnostic Features
- Exercises
- Exercise for microfilaria
- Where the sample was taken from?
- Skin (multiple skin snips preferred; without blood contamination!)
- How does the posterior end of the microfilaria look like? (Use oil immersion and make sure - by clearly seeing nuclei - that the worm is not an artefact)
- Nuclei extend to the tip of the posterior end in the unsheathed thin microfilaria. In most cases the tip of the tail has the aspect of a Shepards crook
- The tip of the posterior end has no nuclei
- Blood sample: Thick smear
- Has the microfilaria a sheath? (be aware that mixed infections are quite common!)
- The microfilaria has a sheath
- How does the posterior (elongated end) of the sheathed microfilaria look like? (watch for the real end in microfilaria which are not nicely stretched out!)
- Nuclei do not extend to the tip of the tail
- Nuclei extend to the tip in a continuous row
- Two separate nuclei at the tip of the tail
- The microfilaria has no sheath
- How does the posterior (elongated) end of the unsheathed microfilaria look like?
- Nuclei extend to the tip of the blunt tail
- Nuclei do not extend to the tip of the tail