Competent Vector-Host-Pathogen Interplay: maggots
Myiasis - Rat-tailed Maggots - Leeches - Medical Framework
Public concern about human myiasis, ecto- or intestinal parasitism; have been on the rise since incidents of non conventional terrorist attacks like anthrax poisoning, food sabotage and the use of food as a weapon of terrorism first surfaced in 2001. The challenge to push the advancement of food and water safety into the next centuries have become more critical and urgent as the need to protect consumers from unintentional and deliberate food-water contamination have arisen given the complexities of immigration and food environments in our world global village.
We first came across life rat-tailed maggots, exotic creatures described initially as artifacts, in November 1996 in Dschang, Cameroon, West Africa. We were led into the world of rat-tailed maggots through its scourges and burdens on some of our loved ones. Since then working in an enclosed and bounded field of unknowing, we have come up with the following website as the first step towards gathering and documenting the scarce scattered literature and many faces of rat-tailed maggots & larvae, its relatives and their scourges.
Fidelis Achenjang