Bitten By a Centipede in Fiji in 2015

In March 2015, I arrived at Suva International Airport in Fiji with no place to sleep. A taxi and a hotel would have cost me more than the budget of the day I was travelling with at the time. I, therefore, decided to try to talk to locals and it did not take long before I was offered a lift and accommodation in a private home.

The stay was for two nights, but after the first, I woke up on the morning of March 9 due to a powerful bite from a millipede. The owner kills it and I go to a doctor. I’m told that it’s not necessary to be seen by a doctor because of this bite. Now here over 7 years later I am in doubt about whether a millipede can cause Lyme disease.

You can not trust Facebook comments where there are shared guesses, but Torben Seefeldt, who is a specialist in lung, infectious and internal medical diseases, has stated “Not aware that millipedes can transmit disease”. It is therefore unlikely that my pain is due to the bite from a millipede in Fiji, but I have chosen to write about it because it is a possible cause. Please contact me if you have knowledge about this or suggestions on how it can be investigated.