What is Dirofilaria and why should we care?
Dirofilaria is a truly stealth disease. It only takes one seemingly inconsequential insect bite to drastically change your future. There is no clinical test for the disease in humans, and chances are that if you had it yourself, you might not ever know. None of the classic symptoms from this disease would uniquely identify an occult infection unless you are specifically looking for this disease.
Because there is no test for the occult form of the disease there can never be any statistics collected, because nobody ever gets a proper clinical diagnosis. Without the statistics needed to gauge how prevalent the disease is, there will never be research funding that is needed to develop that test. Without that research there will also never be a cure for that same disease. So, without substantial evidence for its basic existence, the medical community will never act to break this endless cycle of suffering. Suicide should never be the only answer to any disease.
The Human Dirofilariasis Research Institute (HDRI.org) was established in order to break this endless cycle. We are determined to push for the needs of the people affected by this horrible disease. Our purpose is to do the needed research to serve those who would otherwise die in silence, without so much as the dignity of becoming a mere statistic of the disease that actually killed them.
What we are doing. Our first prototype is the equivalent of an infrasonic stethoscope that is so sensitive that it can record the movement of the adult filaria beneath the skin which could not be seen or heard otherwise. While this first prototype device is far from the ideal clinical diagnostic tool it is good enough to prove that there is a physical basis to peoples suffering. This is just one of many projects we will be working on going forward. We do not plan to stop this research until there is both a clinical serological test and a proper treatment protocol for this horrible debilitating disease.
Nobody should ever have to live like this.