Indian surgeons achieve what didn't happen in US, remove living botfly from America woman’s eye

A 32-year-old American woman had a unique surgery in India. A surgery that couldn’t happen in the US was successfully performed by surgeons in Delhi. The woman had been living with an alive botfly (a type of fly) but doctors in the US could neither diagnose nor treat her issue.

The woman reached Fortis Hospital in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj with a red, swollen right eye. The woman had been feeling something walk inside her eye for the last one and a half month, she said. Back home, her problem remained undiagnosed despite multiple rounds of hospitals. She was sent back with few drugs but her troubles with feeling movement inside the eye remained unresolved.

In India, doctors in the emergency department of the hospital diagnosed the problem in time and brought relief to the woman. She was also at risk of losing a part of her face and nose and developing meningitis, a dangerous illness that affects the brain.

The interesting story behind her diagnosis

The woman told doctors that she travels a lot and had visited the forests of Amazon two months ago. It was right after the Amazon visit that her problems with the right eye began. She felt that someone had bitten in her right eye and it also bled a little. She was suffering from Myiasis but doctors in the US were unable to diagnose her problem.

Not one but three botflies inside the woman’s body

Surgeons at the Delhi hospital removed not one but three alive botflies from the woman’s body – One from her right eye, one from her neck and third from the left arm. Her surgery took just 15 minutes and she was discharged from the emergency department itself.

Common in rural India

The disease is often seen among children in rural India when a botfly enters their skin through nose or skin. It stays alive on human tissue and eats it out from inside. The disease is also found in some parts of South America and Africa.