Filariasis in The Villages Around Lucknow

Abstract

The lymphatic filariasis in man is caused by Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi and Brugia timori (Duke, 1981). It manifests into a spectrum of acute and chronic clinical features (Nelson, 1979; Ottesson, 1980 & Dasgupta, 1981) as a result of continuous exposure and a long association with the parasite. Of the exposed population, a small proportion of subjects shows clinical features of lym­phatic obstruction, but a large proportion of subjects remains clinicaPy silent with circulating larva (microfilaria) in their blood A considerable number of subjects remain positive for clinical symptoms, as well as, for microfilariae (mf) in blood. This leads to three main groups in the community, i.e subjects with symptomatic filariasis, asymptomatic microfilaraemia. and symptomatic microfilariaemia. For a subject to be infective for others, depends upon the frequency of microfilaria per unit blood. The present study was aimed at finding out the prevalence of filarial infec­tion in random population, clinical pre­sentation of disease and the frequency of mf per unit volume of blood in a rural population.