Instead, the best way to get rid of the maggots is to cover the wound with Vaseline. It is well-documented that people become infested - Youtube is full of cilps - with tumbu maggots while abroad and many try to remove them by squeezing.īut this can be dangerous as the maggot can split in half and rot underneath the skin triggering an infection This can cause significant pain and irritation to the surrounding tissue. Once born, the larvae need air to breathe so they eat their way out of their host. To prevent catching the larvae, clothes should be tumble-dried or, if they are left to dry outside, ironed, as the heat kills the eggs.Īfter two or three days, the larvae hatch beneath the skin. If damp fabrics come into contact with human skin, the eggs penetrate the skin. The female tumbu fly lays its eggs on damp clothing or towels. The tumbu fly is found across the tropics and can cause a condition called myiasis, when the larvae feed on a host. Paul then looked at me and said "I think we need to go to hospital",' she recalled. 'I started screaming and saying "No, no, please tell me it's not a maggot!". 'I called for him to grab some tweezers and then asked him if he could pull out whatever it was that was moving under my skin if I squeezed.' Paul then pulled out a large maggot. I immediately thought there was something wrong.'Ĭatherine immediately called her husband Paul and asked him to help. 'But as I squeezed I felt something pull back. 'When I found a yellow one on my stomach I just thought it was just a small infected bite with pus and thought squeezing it might help,' 'There were just a few red circles that looked like bites, but when I got home I found more,' she said.
Squeezing the lesion revealed she was infested with the larvae of the tumbu fly which gorge on human flesh. When she returned to the UK and discovered several bites on her body she wasn't worried - but as one turned yellow she thought she should investigate it further.
Within weeks of returning home from Africa, Catherine Stewart felt something wriggling in her stomachĪ British woman returned from doing charity work in Africa to find flesh-eating maggots living - and wriggling - in her stomach.Ĭatherine Stewart, 28, from Liverpool, visited The Gambia to better understand how the charity she worked for in the UK was helping the West African country's inhabitants.
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