- Brugia
- A genus of filarial worms transmitted by mosquitoes to humans, primates, felid carnivores, and a number of other mammals.- B. malayi the Malayan filaria species, an important agent of human filariasis and elephantiasis in Southeast Asia and Indonesia, transmitted to humans by species of Mansonia and Anopheles mosquitoes; adult parasites cause lymphangitis and lymphadenitis, but there is less involvement of the genital region and lower extremities, and a relatively greater incidence of disease in the upper extremities than with Wuchereria bancrofti infection. Formerly called Wuchereria malayi.
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n.a genus of threadlike parasitic worms (see filaria). B. malayi infects humans throughout southeast Asia, causing filariasis and elephantiasis (especially of the feet and legs). B. pahangi, a parasite of wild cats and domestic animals, produces an allergic condition in humans, with coughing, breathing difficulty, and an increase in the number of eosinophil in the blood. Brugia undergoes part of its development in mosquitoes of the genera Anopheles and Mansonia, which transmit the parasite from host to host.* * *
Brug·ia (brooґje-ə) [S.L. Brug, Dutch parasitogist in Indonesia, early 20th century] a genus of parasitic filarial worms of the superfamily Filarioidea.
Medical dictionary. 2011.