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Article: Woman sneezes out maggots after fly larvae get trapped in her deviated septum

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4 / 10

AI Summary (Processed Content)

A 58-year-old woman in Greece holds a medical record for the longest-known human case of a sheep bot fly larvae developing in her nose, with the parasite reaching its pupal stage. This case, detailed in a medical journal, challenges the long-held belief that these flies cannot develop beyond the first larval stage in humans. The woman, who worked outdoors near grazing sheep, was initially swarmed by flies and later sneezed out late-stage larvae.

The main topics covered are an unusual medical case, the life cycle of the sheep bot fly, and the scientific significance of the parasite's development in a human host.

Original URL

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/woman-sneezes-out-maggots-after-fly-larvae-get-trapped-in-her-deviated-septum/

Source Feed

Ars Technica

Published Date

2026-03-13 22:38

Fetched Date

2026-03-13 20:30

Processed Date

2026-03-13 20:30

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Present

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Not Clustered

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A 58-year-old woman in Greece appears to hold the record for growing a parasitic sheep bot fly in her nose the longest, almost creating a snot rocket that could literally fly.
Usually, when the sheep bot fly accidentally nosedives into a human’s schnoz, the first-stage larvae they deliver don’t actually develop. In contrast, in its normal target—a sheep’s nose— the larvae would move up into the sinuses, feed, grow, and molt into second- and third-stage larvae. From there, the flies (Oestrus ovis) drip from the nose onto the ground, burrow into the soil, pupate, and emerge as adult flies.
For a long time, experts thought that the flies couldn’t complete their development in humans beyond the first larval stage. But a few human cases have been reported in recent decades involving the second- and third-stage larvae. The woman’s case, reported in the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases by a medical entomologist and colleagues, goes the furthest yet, finding pupa and a puparium—the hard casing of a pupa—in the woman’s nose.
In the report, the experts note that the woman worked outdoors in an area of a Greek island close to a field with grazing sheep. On a hot and dry September day, she recalled a swarm of flies bombarding her face. About a week later, she had facial pain and then developed a cough over the next two to three weeks. Those were her only symptoms until October 15, when she sneezed and reported that “worms” came out of her nose. They were, in fact, late-stage sheep bot fly larvae.