Leech stuck up hiker's nose gives doctors the runaround

A stubborn leech took three doctors and five medical examinations to be removed from the nostrils of a 55-year-old woman hiker, a month after it invaded her nose.

The sizable bloodsucker - measuring 5cm long and 0.5cm wide -apparently wormed its way into the woman's nose when she washed her face at a freshwater stream on Lantau's Wong Lung Hang Country Trail while hiking with a group of friends in May 2003.

A male friend who also washed his face in the same stream had a similar complaint and was treated at Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan, the Hong Kong Medical Journal reported yesterday.

The housewife, who has been hiking for 20 years, did not realise the problem until two weeks later. 'I did not notice any leeches in the water. I am used to seeing all these worms in the water while hiking. You can even see these leeches when you wash vegetables at home,' she told the Post.

Chow Chun-kuen, a surgeon who helped remove the worm, and his colleagues at Queen Mary Hospital and the University of Hong Kong's department of microbiology, wrote the unusual report in the monthly journal published by the Hong Kong Medical Association.

Dr Chow, an associate consultant at the hospital, warned that if the leech had dug deeper into the woman's nose and into her lungs, it would have had dire consequences.