A man with blurred vision, floaters and redness and pain in his eye was found to have a living worm wriggling inside it.
Doctors said the worm may have burrowed through layers of his eyeball and grown there.
The 25-year-old man went to his doctor after suffering painful symptoms in his left eye for two weeks.
When medics in New Delhi examined him he had 20/20 vision in his right eye but 20/160 in his left – a level which is considered visually impaired.
Those treating him, who described the case in the journal BMJ Case Reports, found ‘a fairly live long live worm moving around in a haphazard and relentless manner’ in his eye.
The 25-year-old unnamed man who had blurred vision, pain, redness and floaters in his eye was found to have a live worm wriggling inside it
Doctors examined the worm and said it was a Loa Loa worm, a type of nematode or roundworm that can grow up to 70mm long. It is pictured under the microscope after being removed via surgery
The patient, a fruit vendor, came from an eastern region of India.
Medics believe he may have become infested because flies carrying the parasite were attracted to his produce.
The worm was found in the man’s vitreous cavity, the part of the eye behind the lens and in front of the retina, a light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye.
It is filled with a gel-like fluid called the vitreous humour, which helps maintain the shape of the eye, and is the perfect living environment for a parasitic worm.
Surgeons decided to operate to remove the worm, as the patient's eyes were already inflamed - and anti-parasitic drugs to kill the worm might have resulted in a more toxic reaction, the doctors said.
After the worm was removed it was sent to the microbiology department for examination, where scientists identified it as a male adult Loa Loa worm, known by its Latin name of L.Loa.
L.Loa is a roundworm or nematode, of which there are more than 15,000 known species.
Adult males can grow up to 34mm long, and females can reach 70mm long.
The Loa Loa worm (pictured) is endemic to West and Central Africa, although sporadic cases have been reported from other parts of the world, including India, and it may have burrowed through the man's eyeball
The doctors said this was the first case of an L.Loa infestation in the vitreous cavity of the eye that has ever been reported.
The man was given anti-parasitic drugs after the operation and his vision improved after two weeks.
The L.Loa worm is endemic to West and Central Africa, although sporadic cases have been reported from other parts of the world, including India.
One theory is that the worm may have migrated into the vitreous cavity while it was in its larval stage.
It may have travelled through blood vessels or by burrowed through the layers of the eyeball, and grown there, the doctors said.
HOW CAN A PARASITIC WORM GET INTO A PERSON'S EYE?
Professor Mark Viney, a biologist specialising in nematode roundworms at the University of Bristol, explained that roundworms or nematodes, such as L.Loa, found in the eye are usually transmitted by insect.
He told MailOnline: ‘There are a whole bunch of nematodes that are transmitted by insect.
'The person are bitten and the larvae of worms are injected in the bite.
'They grow into adults which make their own young, and some of those young can travel through tissues and end up in the eye.’
‘It can live in the eye because as a parasite it has evolved to live inside other animals and is very good at it.
Professor Viney said nemotode worms that get into the eyes are often transmitted by insects in West Africa
‘The worm has evolved to change the host’s immune response to further its own survival. The worms secrete molecules which go and interact with other molecules in the host’s immune system and alter it.
‘That’s why research is being done on using worms for immunotherapeutic reasons. People with Irritable Bowel Syndrome could be given worms to change their immune response so they don’t have symptoms.’
He said infection of eyes by nematodes is common in West Africa, where insects transmit a type of nematode called onchocerciasis.
‘Its common name is river blindness, called so because the insects breed in the river and it causes blindness.
'It’s not clear why it causes blindness. It’s probably not just because the person has worms in their eye, but because the body’s immunological reactions against the worm causes disease in the eye.
There’s been a big campaign to eliminate these diseases in West Africa, but it’s not completely eradicated.'
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