A Russian tourist named Anna returned home to Moscow from the Maldives with a live parasitic larva burrowing inside her foot, according to reports.
The parasite entered her skin after she walked barefoot along a beach at the luxury resort destination, Russian Telegram news channel Shot reported.
Four days before her scheduled flight back to Russia, Anna began experiencing severe itching in one of her toes. She initially assumed an insect had bitten her. The redness soon began spreading across her foot, and a winding track appeared under her skin, growing longer with each passing day.
Upon arriving back in Moscow, the woman sought advice from multiple medical professionals across the city. Specialists at a dedicated medical institute examined the affected foot and confirmed that a migrating parasite had settled beneath her skin.
Complications in medical treatment
Doctors prescribed a targeted course of treatment, and the wound has started to heal gradually. However, her recovery is proceeding slowly because she cannot take standard antiparasitic drugs while breastfeeding her infant child.
The condition, medically known as cutaneous larva migrans or creeping eruption, occurs when animal hookworm larvae penetrate human tissue. According to the Telegram channel, these parasites thrive in warm, contaminated sand and easily enter the body through bare feet, triggering intense itching, inflammation, and blistering.
In tropical environments, hookworm larvae are typically deposited in soil and beach sand through animal feces, most commonly from dogs or cats. Because humans are accidental hosts, the larvae cannot mature into adult worms, but they continue to crawl through the upper layers of skin for weeks, creating characteristic raised trails.
Tropical beach hazards and previous cases
The Maldives, an archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean made up of more than a thousand coral islands, is globally celebrated for its luxury private resorts and white sand beaches. While resorts attract wealthy holidaymakers from across the globe, unwashed tropical sand can harbor microscopic organisms in areas frequented by domestic animals or wildlife.
The incident follows a similar medical ordeal involving another Russian tourist who recently had eight larvae surgically extracted from her foot after vacationing on Phu Quoc, a resort island in southern Vietnam. In that incident, the traveler suspected that local sand fleas had deposited eggs beneath her skin or introduced an infection during her stay.
Anna remains under outpatient observation at home in Moscow as her wound slowly heals under ongoing medical care.
