Clinical responses in human onchocerciasis: parasitological and immunological implications

Onchocerciasis can cause severe dermal and ocular disease due, it is thought, to the events surrounding the destruction of the microfilarial stage. The evolution of papular pruritic dermatitis and punctate keratitis is clearly related to the killing of microfilariae. Other more chronic changes such as dermal and epidermal atrophy are probably due to repeated episodes of microfilarial killing. It is common to find that not all patients are, at any one time, mounting clinically obvious destructive host responses against the microfilariae, and such individuals can carry very high loads of parasites without any apparent adverse effects. The immunological basis of the differences between these types of patients forms one of the most important questions in the pathogenesis of onchocerciasis today. Various explanations are now emerging. These include immunosuppressive factors and variation in the form of Onchocerca volvulus antigens presented to the host. Clinical presentations of this disease appear to reflect variations in host responses and can be used to provide information concerning the protective immune responses an individual can mount against this parasite.