Differences between the microfilariae of Wuchereria malayi and Wuchereria bancrofti in giemsa-stained thick blood films

Abstract
The localities of Albertville, Elisabethville and Sanakia in the Belgian Congo contain foci of human intestinal schistosomiasis due to S. mansoni, as well as foci of S. rodhaini, the causal agent of a schistosomiasis among wild rodents. In the course of our researches in these three localities, we discovered in several rats seemingly infected with S. mansoni, eggs that differed in their structure from the usual run of eggs of this species. We subsequently named this new schistosome S. mansoni var. rodentorum; it causes a light infection in rodents indicated usually by the finding of several broken or empty eggs in the liver. Since both human beings and rodents frequent the same rivers and the same swamps infested with molluscs shedding schistosome cercariae, it was quite obvious that we are in the presence of the same illness and of a common source of infection. We subsequently wanted to ascertain whether this was a general phenomenon, that is whether rodents living in the proximity of foci of human infection with S. mansoni, are usually or frequently infected with S. mansoni, or whether this was only a regional, specific occurrence. Having this object in mind, we examined 429 wild rats and 58 R. rattus coming from four foci of human schistosomiasis: Lake Kivu, Lake Albert, Bunia and Irumu; and only in this last focus did we find one rodent naturally parasitized by S. mansoni var. rodentorum. We next examined, without any positive result, 185 wild rats and 64 R. rattus in the S. haematobium focus of Kongolo; and 41 wild rats as well as 10 R. rattus in the focus of S. intercalatum infection in Stanleyville.

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