African bug laid eggs in Brit’s student's foot before hitching a ride to the UK

A parasitic bug hitched a lift to the UK from Africa inside a student's foot before bursting out in his bedroom.

Matthew O’Donnell, aged 22, worked as a volunteer in Tanzania before returning home in in September.

The first Matthew knew of his uninvited guest was when he felt a tingling feeling in his foot as he sat on his bed at home in East Sussex on Wednesday.

“I looked down to see a lump, I thought ‘What on earth is that?’” Matthew told the Plymouth Herald. “A tiny black bug dropped out, followed by 100 little white eggs tumbling after it.

“It seems this insect used me as a free ticket back from Tanzania only to pop out of my foot a
He later found out the bug was a was a chigoe flea - a 1mm long anthropod which is found in tropical and sub-tropical environments.

The Plymouth University graduate says the bug left a hole in his foot under his little toe.

He wrapped the eggs in toilet paper and flushed them away before they had time to hatch.

He said he didn't know whether to laugh or cut his foot off "with a carving knife."

Matthew said one of his pals in Africa got one of the bugs - which can live in human flesh for up to a month after burrowing through the skin - under her toenails.

His doctor gave him the all clear after examining his foot on Thursday.

-The Mirror