SALUD
Mites living in our
EYELASHES Experts at Universidad del Norte, Clínica Oftalmológica del Caribe and Procaps develop a Project that is expected to improve the life quality of blepharitis patients, a disease produced by two species of mites of the Demodex genus.
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Universidad del Nor te
By Jesús Anturi - Luis Navas Journalists anturij@uninorte.edu.co - cohenl@uninorte.edu.co
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lthough they live very near from the human eye, we can´t see them. They are tiny, microscopic and are about 0.4 mm long. They have four pairs of short legs, are colorless and their body is long like that of an earthworm, although they have no relation with worms. They move slowly, but constant in the interior of hair follicles of the eyelashes, where they move as if they were on a road and leave their eggs distributed along the eyelids. They are the mite species belonging to de genus Demodex (from the Greek demos: grease and dex: larva). It was discovered in 1841 and its excessive presence in the eye can be linked with the manifestation of cutaneous and ocular diseases. Before getting into tormenting thoughts about the idea of living with a face parasite, or starting to look for a method or dermatologic product to eliminate them, we have to make it clear that these hosts are inoffensive if their population is controlled. That is to say that they are part of our natural skin fauna. Studies worldwide show that most of the human population has DNA rests of at least two Demodex species in their body and that generally, they are acquired during breastfeeding and this makes them one of the most common ecto-parasites in the human being.