Causes of Elephant Foot Disease and How to Overcome It

Elephant foot disease or called lymphatic filariasis is caused by Filariodidea worms that infect lymph nodes. This worm enters the human body by mosquito intermediaries. Elephant foot disease is commonly found in tropical regions, such as Indonesia. In total there are 1.23 billion people worldwide who are at risk of getting this disease. In Indonesia alone, there were around 13,000 cases of elephant disease in 2015.

How can elephantiasis spread?

As a tropical country, Indonesia is a comfortable place for mosquitoes to breed. Therefore, it is natural that more than one hundred million people are at risk of becoming infected with this disease. When mosquitoes suck the blood of someone who contains filaria worms, the worms will also infect mosquitoes. Furthermore, this infected mosquito will spread filaria worms when biting others. Filaria worm larvae will then stay in the lymph vessels. In these lymph vessels the filaria worm larvae will grow up and multiply. Adult worms themselves can live up to 7 years in human lymph vessels. They will spread millions of worms into blood vessels so that when bitten, mosquitoes can spread them to other people.

What are the symptoms of elephantiasis?

In fact, a person infected with this worm can not be immediately ascertained because this disease has several phases, namely without symptoms, acute, and chronic.

• The phase without symptoms

When someone is infected with filaria worms, he will not immediately show certain symptoms. However, in this phase there has actually been damage to the lymphatic and lymphatic flow system, as changes in the immune system occur.

• Acute phase

Characterized by inflammation of the skin, lymph nodes, and lymph vessels, which usually accompany the swelling of the lymph nodes that have been chronic, and elephantiasis. This is caused by the body's immune system response to parasites. Symptoms that can occur in the acute phase include fever, swollen lymph nodes, and swelling of the legs and testicles.

• Chronic phase

When entering the chronic phase, swelling of lymph tissue and thickening of the skin in the legs and balls can occur. In women, swelling of the breasts and genital organs can occur.

How to Prevent and Treat Elephant Foot Disease

Because it involves mosquitoes as intermediaries, the way to prevent elephantiasis is as much as possible to avoid being exposed to mosquito bites, especially in the morning and evening. The trick is to clean the environment so that mosquitoes do not nest, sleep by using mosquito nets, wear long clothes when outdoors activities, and spread the mosquito repellent on the skin that is not covered by clothes. Taking worm medicine regularly every year can kill worm larvae in the bloodstream. If someone has suffered from elephantiasis, he will be advised to take antiparasitic drugs, such as albendazole and ivermectin, or with diethylcarbamazine citrate. These drugs are effective for cleaning blood from microfilaria, while preventing the spread to others. To eradicate adult worms, doxycycline can be used. Use of the drug above also acts as a prevention against transmission of elephantiasis in the community. For filarial worm infections that cause large swelling in the testicular sac or on the eye, surgery may be needed. Because basically all people are susceptible to this elephantiasis, it is natural to be vigilant and take precautions early. Keeping the environment clean and personal hygiene also important to prevent the spread of elephantiasis.