Do you love maggots? Kalro farms them for treatment of bad wounds

The Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization is involved in the production of maggots for clinical therapy, a method of treating non-healing or infected wounds.

A wound is defined as chronic or non-healing if it takes more than three weeks to heal and this presents a huge burden for patients and their families.

Maggot debridement therapy involves using sterilised fly larvae (maggots) that feed on dead tissue and bacteria in a wound, effectively cleaning it and promoting healing.

Paul Ngare from the Biotechnology Research Institute at Kalro Muguga says they have been working on various technologies including maggot therapy.

“We use the green butterfly larvae to manage chronic wounds. The larvae normally eat the dead necrotic tissue from the wounds and feed on harmful bacteria and the secretion which has enzymes destroys these harmful bacteria and provide a protective layer on the surface of the wound,” he explained.

Ngare noted that maggot therapy is not a very new technology in Kenya, as it was introduced back in 2013 through the aid of the Syrian government.

The groundwork was laid through collaborative research between Kalro, the University of Nairobi and Kenyatta National Hospital.

Maggot therapy was a common form of treatment in early civilizations, but with bacteria developing resistance to the antibiotics, healthcare practitioners are now reverting to maggot therapy as an alternative to treat wounds, especially chronic ones.

Ngare explained that sometimes a patient might have another underlying condition, resulting in him or her being immuno-compromised and thus resistant to the bacteria.

Biotherapy, also known as immunotherapy, uses substances derived from living organisms to treat diseases and is thus important in management of such wounds.

Besides health, he noted that the advantage of maggots is if used in forensic research, they can be applied to conversion of waste to useful protein by allowing them to grow to the third instar larvae which is normally 10 to 20 millimetres and used as animal feeds once dried.

“Maggots are very rich in protein, which is about 60 percent protein, making it about twice the composition of protein in soil and can be mixed in animal feeds in the right proportions for feed formulation,” Ngare said.

In 2012, KNH and UoN approved a pilot study on maggot therapy. The study was conducted between August and December 2013 at KNH.

Twenty-four patients were treated with 30 maggot applications. Kalro is running an open week where farmers and the general public can engage scientists on various technologies.