Mango's are so tasty.....

....but please do not confuse these with Mango fly’s which are disgusting!

My day did not start well. My first job when waking for medical rounds at 6.30am was to check on baby Ketty. The previous night her housemother had brought her for an ‘inspection’! There were 6 lumps on her back and she had been crying inconsolably for hours. The housemother thought that the lumps were moving under the skin so wanted us to see them. After a look and a bit of deliberation between the missionaries who had seen the offending lumps before, it was decided that baby Ketty had been infected with Mango Fly.

The 'official' bit: Mango fly (officially known as the Tumbu or Putzi Fly) is very common in Central and East Africa. It lays eggs in clothes that have been hung outside to dry. The eggs then, when in contact with warm human skin, hatch. The larvae burrow into the skin and develop into fully grown maggots if left to their own devices. The unfortunate human host develops multiple boil-like sores, usually on the backs of arms, around the waist, back or bottom. The medical name for this condition is 'Myiasis'. To avoid being a host to the Mango fly offspring, the simple solution is to iron all of your clothes as the heat from the iron kills the eggs. (Info taken from: About.com/Travel Africa)

Mango fly was one of two tropical medical experiences that I had been praying I would not have to deal with in Uganda. Mango fly and Jiggers (small ticks that bury into your toes and have to be dug out) were my ultimate gross factor situations that I did not want to encounter here and the day to face one of my fears had come! I applied Vaseline and an occlusive dressing to the lumps knowing that this would suffocate the maggots and prepared myself for the extraction the following morning. I woke and went straight to her house. I removed the dressing, wiped away the Vaseline and began to give each lump a good old squeeze. As I squeezed fairly large maggots easily 'popped' out from the skin and lay there on her back, dead. It was gross. For those of you who know me well you will know that I pride myself on my strong nursing ‘stomach’. I have the ability to have random conversations about patient’s bowel habits or wounds and smells whilst eating my lunch in the staff canteen at work or whilst enjoying dinner at home but this,.....it did me in! All I can tell you was that it was fortunate that I had not had breakfast! Yuck. Baby Ketty hated the whole experience as much as I did and screamed throughout the extractions. I had thought of taking a photo to show you but even that was too horrible. I am now recovered and so is the baby. Hopefully that will be my one and only Mango Fly experience, which I can now tick off the list and put way behind me!