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A 36-year-old woman did not know what to do with the itchy skin lesion she had discovered after a trip to Belize. After months of consultations, doctors determined that a fly had been dug in her skin – and had been living there for months.
The unnamed woman from Tampa, Florida, told doctors at the Tampa General Hospital that she had been bitten by an insect in Belize two months ago and that the bite may have left a rash mysterious, according to a report Journal of Investigative Medicine High Impact Case Reports. There was a small hole in the groin that sometimes blew liquid.
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However, the medical experts could not understand what was wrong with the woman. She went to Memorial Hospital in Tampa, where doctors discovered that the fly, known as the human phylogeny virus, was growing in her left region.
"I've never seen anything like this for 15 years here, but it's pretty common in Central and South America," said Dr. Enrico Camporesi, a wound care specialist who treated the woman in Tampa. Memorial. Tampa Bay Times.
"We do not suspect that the egg was deposited by a fly, but rather a mosquito that bit the man and dropped the botfly egg."
Camporesi did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
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The human fly virus is a common insect in the tropics and rare in the United States, according to the report released last month. The bug lays its eggs on insects such as flies or mosquitoes, which then carry it on human skin. The eggs then hatch into larvae that are deep in the skin and live there for between 27 and 128 days, the report says.
"In some cases, patients may feel the larvae move when they shower or cover the wound," researchers said in the report. "It mainly affects the limbs, although the presentation on the genitals, the scalp, the breast and the eyes has been reported."
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After living (and growing up) under the skin of a person, the adult larva falls back to the ground and continues to mature for up to 78 days before becoming an adult fly, which is between 1 and 3 centimeters long, says the report.
Because of its scarcity and "nonspecific symptoms," infections with viruses in the United States are often misdiagnosed and treatment may be delayed. For its part, doctors removed the fly by a 5-millimeter incision in the skin, says the report. A week later, the infection was "completely resolved".
Neither the woman's identity nor the details of the nature of her journey were revealed, but the Tampa Bay Times reported that she was on honeymoon during the holidays.
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