A MAN who suffered regular nosebleeds was found to be suffering a nasty and rare infection, doctors have revealed.
The 27-year-old picked up the bug swimming in a pond.
nejm
nejm
Plagued by nosebleeds
After noticing something in his right nostril, the man went to see a doctor in New Delhi, India.
He told medics he’d suffered nosebleeds for around three months.
After examining their patient, doctors discovered a grim red lump lodged in his nose.
The strange lump bled when they touched it and doctors quickly resolved to remove it.
After cutting the mass away, they sent it away for testing and discovered the man was suffering a condition called rhinosporidosis, a disease which affects the membranes in the body.
The disease causes tumour-like lumps or polyps to grow in the nostrils, and can also affect the throat, eyes, rectum and external genitalia, the doctors note in a case report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The condition is caused by a water-borne bug called Rhinosporidium seeberi.
Common in India and Sri Lanka
It’s most common in southern India, Sri Lanka and Argentina and cases have also been reported in Africa and Europe.
The first sign you might be infected is when you feel as though there’s a foreign body in the nostril.
The disease progresses really slowly in many cases, and lumps can be present for years before a patient develops any symptoms.
The typical presentation is a reddish… polyp, commonly involving the nasal cavity, that bleeds profusely on touch
Pirabu Sakthivel
Pirabu Sakthivel, author of the case report, said: “The typical presentation is a reddish… polyp, commonly involving the nasal cavity, that bleeds profusely on touch.
“At follow up eight months later, the patient had areas of recurrence in the nasopharynx that were removed.”
Malcolm Richardson and Caroline Moore, authors of Infectious Diseases, said: “Little is known about the natural habitat of R.seebreri, but it is believed that stagnant pools of water may be the source of human infection.
“The disease is most prevalent in rural districts, particularly among people working or bathing in stagnant water – such as rice fields.
“Men are commonly more affected than women.”
Experts also believe the bug can be transmitted to humans in dust, given cases that have cropped up in arid countries in the Middle East.
Girl caught parasitic bug walking in mud
Earlier this week we reported on another disturbing case report, of a little girl left with a horrific infection after parasitic fleas burrowed into her feet.
The girl picked up the bug walking barefoot through a muddy pigsty.
Her family took her to hospital 10 days where doctors found lots of itchy pauples, with black dots in the middle.
They diagnosed the girl with tungiasis, an inflammatory skin disease caused by a sand flea native to Central and South America.
The female sand flea buries itself deep into the skin, usually in the toes, soles and heels, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
It then sucks on blood and its body quickly begins to grow, which can cause itching, inflammation and pain.
The flea then lays about 100 eggs through a tiny hole in the skin, which fall to the ground and hatch.
New England Journal of Medicine
