Ocular Leech Infestation

A 67-year-old myopic man presented to the Ophthalmology Department of a teaching hospital in the mountainous state of Sikkim with complaints of red eye, ocular discomfort, and sensation of something moving in his right eye that lead to occasional visual blurring from the previous four days. His symptoms started after washing his face in a stream. Clinical diagnosis was a leech in the limbus of the right eye at the 12 o’clock position. Ocular leech infestation should be considered in a patient with a history of swimming or face washing in streams and lakes. Herein we report a case of ocular leech infestation that presented as red eye with intermittent blurring of vision in the affected eye, and discuss the differential diagnosis and clinical signi_cance.