This Week in Parasitism22 Mar 2025

TWiP 255: Katayama fever

Michelle Labrunda joins TWiP to solve the case of the Georgian in Guinea with fever and dry cough, and describe a new case for you to solve.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Daniel Griffin, and Christina Naula

Guest: Michelle Labrunda

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New Case

A man who is on eculizumab, a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody that targets complement protein C5 which serves as a terminal complement inhibitor, comes in with left arm swelling. He lives in a city in the north part of the island of Borneo. He is being managed by a doctor in the Malaysian City of Kuching. Now the doctor caring for this man is married to an Infectious Disease expert and she raises concerns that this might be due to a parasitic disease. She is told by the husband that the disease of which she is thinking is not present in the region. She is not swayed and admits him for nightly blood smears which are negative. She then does a rapid immunochromatographic dipstick test that is positive. He lives in a community outside the city and they go to that village and find others with limb swelling issues who are also positive on antigen testing. He is treated with an antibiotic, not antiparasitic for 4 weeks and the arm improves. Hint: this is not Wuchereria Bancrofti.

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Music by Ronald Jenkees

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