TOXOCARIASIS VISCERAL AND OCULAR LARVA MIGRANS: IS IT STILL A NEGLECTED ZOONOTIC DISEASE?

Zoonotic toxocariasis (visceral larva migrans or VLM & ocular larva migrans or OLM) refersto human infection caused by helminths that are not natural human parasites. Toxocariasis is anunderestimated geohelminthic infection may be worldwide.Toxocariasis occurs as a result of human infection with the dog ascarid larvae, Toxocara canisor less commonly, the cat ascarid larvae, T. cati. VLM is mainly a disease of young children,especially those with exposure to playgrounds and sandboxes contaminated by dog or catfeces. While common globally, prevalence in both animals and people is highest in developingcountries. In developed countries, more infections are detected among persons in lower socioeconomicstrata. TVLM & OLM clinical presentations, although most infections are asymptomatic,yet in VLM, which occurs mostly in preschool children, larvae invade multiple tissues(mainly liver, lung, skeletal muscle, or heart) causing nonspecific symptoms as fever, myalgia,weight loss, cough, rashes, hepatosplenomegaly accompanied by hypereosinophilia. Migrationto CNS (neurotoxocariasis) is uncommon and can cause eosinophilic meningoencephalitis andepilepsy. Death can occur with severe cardiac, pulmonary, or neurologic involvement.