The embryogenesis of Onchocerca volvulus over the first year after a single dose of ivermectin

Adult Onchocerca volvulus, extracted from nodules before, and at intervals of two weeks to 12 months after, a single 150 micrograms/kg dose of ivermectin, were examined longitudinally and by sequential transverse sections. The mean number of male worms per nodule fell, and the proportion of nodules with no male worm rose, within two weeks of ivermectin and remained so for 12 months. In female worms, at intervals after ivermectin, the percentages of the length of the lower genital tracts occupied by embryos at each stage of development, or by degenerating ova, embryos and microfilariae (mfs), were recorded: (a) in un(re-)inseminated worms whose original embryogenesis was continuing and in those in which it was completed; and (b) in worms, reinseminated post-ivermectin, in which a new embryogenesis had begun. The results indicated that: (a) the time needed for the zygotes of O. volvulus to develop to mfs is 8-12 weeks; (b) nearly 40 percent of females had not resumed mf production by 12 months after treatment; (c) many intrauterine mfs had not degenerated within the first two weeks of ivermectin; (d) some of the last embryos to mature to mfs did not degenerate but accumulated temporarily in the anterior uteri 8-16 weeks after ivermectin.