The pediatric dose is the same. DEC is effective against microfilariae and somewhat effective against macrofilariae (adult worms). The recommended dosage of ivermectin is 150 µg/kg in patients with a low microfilaria load (with densities less than 8000 mf/mL).In patients with high microfilaria load and/or the possibility of an onchocerciasis coinfection, treatment with DEC and/or ivermectin may be contraindicated or require a substantially lower initial dose, as the rapid microfilaricidal actions of the drugs can provoke encephalopathy. In these cases, initial albendazole administration has proved helpful (and is superior to ivermectin, which can also be risky despite its slower-acting microfilaricidal effects over DEC). The CDC recommended dosage for albendazole is 200 mg taken twice a day for 21 days. Also, in cases where two or more DEC treatments have failed to provide a cure, subsequent albendazole treatment can be administered.Management of Loa loa infection in some instances can involve surgery, though the timeframe during which surgical removal of the worm must be carried out is very short. A detailed surgical strategy to remove an adult worm is as follows (from a real case in New York City). The 2007 procedure to remove an adult worm from a male Gabonian immigrant employed proparacaine and povidone-iodine drops, a wire eyelid speculum, and 0.5 ml 2% lidocaine with epinephrine 1:100,000, injected superiorly. A 2-mm incision was made and the immobile worm was removed with forceps.
When fully mature, C. silacea and C. dimidiata assume the day-biting tendencies of all tabanids.The bite of the mango fly can be very painful, possibly because of the laceration style employed; rather than puncturing the skin as a mosquito does, the mango fly (and deer fly) makes a laceration in the skin and subsequently laps up the blood. Female flies require a fair amount of blood for their aforementioned reproductive purposes and thus may take multiple blood meals from the same host if disturbed during the first one.Although Chrysops silacea and C. dimidiata are attracted to canopied rainforests, they do not do their biting there. Instead, they leave the forest and take most blood meals in open areas. The flies are attracted to smoke from wood fires and they use visual cues and sensation of carbon dioxide plumes to find their preferred host, humans.A study of Chrysops spp. biting habits showed that C. silacea and C. dimidiata take human blood meals approximately 90% of the time, with hippopotamus, wild ruminant, rodent and lizard blood meals making up the other 10%. Morphology
Adult Loa worms are sexually dimorphic, with males considerably smaller than females at 30–34 mm long and 0.35–0.42 mm wide compared to 40–70 mm long and 0.5 mm wide. Adults live in the subcutaneous tissues of humans, where they mate and produce wormlike eggs called microfilariae.