Attempts to infect small laboratory animals with the infective larvae of Onchocerca lienalis

Abstract

All the natural hosts of Onchocerca parasites are large animals (MULLI-R, 1979) andthere is, therefore an urgent need to develop a small animal model for onchoccrciasis,preferably one that employs a strain of inbred host. Rodents have been usedsuccessfully as experimental hosts for the microfilariac of O. guiturosa (sec NELSON et al. 1966), O. cervicalis (see RAbalais, 1974), O. armilluta (see EL Bihari & Hussein, 1975) and O. ijibsoni (see Beveridge et al., 1980) but there have been few publishedattempts to infect these hosts with infective-stage larvae.