THE FIRST CASE OF <i>MONILIFORMIS MONILIFORMIS</i> (ACANTHOCEPHALA) INFECTION IN UZBEKISTAN

Only a few cases of Moniliformis moniliformis infection have been reported in humans worldwide. In this paper, we report a case of infection with M. moniliformis, which passed in the stool of a 16-month-old boy in Uzbekistan. The patient had abdominal pain, nausea, and one episode of vomiting. The child’s mother reported that she often saw insects in the house, particularly cockroaches, and that the child might have swallowed beetles or cockroaches because he often took various small objects in his mouth. In a stool examination, eggs of M. moniliformis were not found. The patient was treated with albendazole, and the clinical symptoms reduced within 2 weeks. A stool sample contained an adult parasite with a length of 165 mm and a diameter of 2.0-2.5 mm; based on the size, this worm was likely a female. The parasite was white in colour, and it had a segmented appearance because of indented horizontal lines on the surface of its body. No cases of M. moniliformis infection have previously been reported in Uzbekistan. This is the first case of M. moniliformis infection in Uzbekistan.