AJTMH Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
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Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 23(1), 1974, pp. 35-40
Copyright © 1974 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Elephantiasis of the Lower Extremities in Ethiopia: Failure to Implicate Onchocerciasis as an Etiologic Agent by Skin-Snip and Fluorescent Antibody Staining Techniques*

David R. Ten Eyck{dagger}
U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit—3 Field Facility, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The possible role of Onchocerca volvulus infections in the pathogenesis of elephantiasis of the lower extremities was explored in an Ethiopian population using standard skin-snip and fluorescent antibody techniques. All subjects studied (44) with the deformity who lived outside areas endemic for onchocerciasis were skin-snip negative and lacked specific antibody to onchocercal antigen. Positive skin-snip rates and mean microfilarial densities in 95 subjects with elephantiasis from areas endemic for the parasite were similar to those in subjects without elephantiasis from the same areas. No significant difference in mean sero-titers was found between infected subjects with elephantiasis and those without. The conclusion was drawn that, in this population, onchocerciasis was not related etiologically to elephantiasis of the lower extremities.

Accepted for publication July 14, 1973.


* This study was supported by Work Unit MR-001.01-3052, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Navy Department, Washington, D. C. The opinions and assertions contained in this article are the private ones of the author and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Navy Department or the naval service at large.


{dagger} Present address: Naval Medical Research Unit #1, Building T-19, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.






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Copyright © 1974 by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.