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 this disease in humans, and chances are that if you had it you might not ever know it, but if you have a bad case of it you might not choose to live. None of the classic symptoms from this disease would uniquely suggest an occult infection to an uninformed person unless they are specifically looking for this disease. Those that recognize they have a problem don’t even know what it is or why they are having these problems.
Because there is no test for the default form of this 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 required to develop that first test. Without that initial research there will also never be a cure for the disease. So, without substantial evidence for its very 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 required research and to serve those who would otherwise die in silence, without so much as the dignity of becoming a statistic of the disease that actually killed them.
For what we are doing please see out current projects list. 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, so many people with this disease simply choose not to.