Microfilaraemia, serum antibody and development of clinical disease in microfilaraemic subjects infected with Wuchereria bancrofti and treated with diethylcarbamazine citrate
- 1 May 1989
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
- Vol. 83 (3), 384-388
- https://doi.org/10.1016/0035-9203(89)90511-7
Abstract
A seroepidemiological survey of bancroftian filariasis was carried out in 2 townships in Sri Lanka with the objectives of determining the microfilaraemia rates, dependence on age and sex, susceptibility to re-infection, effect of diethylcarbamazine therapy on serum antibodies to microfilarial surface antigens, and the predictive value of the indirect fluorescent antibody test. The mean microfilaraemia rate was 5·4%. Microfilaraemia was not sex-dependent but a marginally elevated incidence was seen in the 6–35 year age groups. In up to 58% of the microfilaraemic patients who had been treated for microfilaraemia previously, a second phase of microfilaraemia was seen 2–7 years after treatment. This was unlikely to have been due to incomplete parasite elimination. Antibodies to microfilarial surface were found in 24–35% of microfilaraemic patients and in 14–63% of amicrofilaraemic symptomatic subjects. Serum anti-microfilarial surface antibody levels did not alter with chemotherapy with diethylcarbamazine citrate. The findings of follow-up investigations of microfilaraemic subjects were compatible with the notion that microfilaraemia does not necessarily lead to clinical disease.Keywords
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