Signs and Symptoms

The development of the disease itself in humans is still something of an enigma to scientists. Though the infection is generally acquired early in childhood, the disease may take years to manifest itself.

Indeed, many people never acquire outward clinical manifestations of their infections. Even though there may be no clinical symptoms, studies have now disclosed that such victims, outwardly healthy, actually have hidden lymphatic pathology and kidney damage as well. The asymptomatic form of infection is most often characterized by the presence in the blood of thousands or millions of larval parasites (microfilariae) and adult worms located in the lymphatic system.

The worst symptoms of the chronic disease generally appear in adults, and in men more often than in women. In endemic communities, some 10-50% of men suffer from genital damage, especially hydrocoele (fluid-filled balloon-like enlargement of the sacs around the testes) and elephantiasis of the penis and scrotum. Elephantiasis of the entire leg, the entire arm, the vulva, or the breast - swelling up to several times normal size - can affect up to 10% of men and women in these communities.

Acute episodes of local inflammation involving skin, lymph nodes and lymphatic vessels often accompany the chronic lymphoedema or elephantiasis. Some of these are caused by the body's immune response to the parasite, but most are the result of bacterial infection of skin where normal defences have been partially lost due to underlying lymphatic damage. Careful cleansing can be extremely helpful in healing the infected surface areas and in both slowing and, even more remarkably, reversing much of the overt damage that has occurred already.

In endemic areas, chronic and acute manifestations of filariasis tend to develop more often and sooner in refugees or newcomers than in local populations continually exposed to infection. Lymphoedema may develop within six months and elephantiasis as quickly as a year after arrival.