I. General Description Trypanosoma cruzi, a protozoan parasite, causes Chagas disease, a zoonotic disease that can be transmitted to humans by blood-sucking triatomine bugs (also known as the kissing bug because it bites on the face). Chagas disease is named after the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas, who discovered the disease in 1909. Chagas disease is endemic throughout much of Mexico, Central America, and South America where an estimated 18 million people are infected. It has been introduced into the United States by population migration.
II. Causative
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The number of newly infected people has decreased and completely halted vector borne transmission in some areas due to public health efforts aimed at preventing transmission. Infection acquired from blood products, organ transplantation, or congenital transmission continues to pose a threat. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 300,000 persons with Trypanosoma cruzi infection live in the United States.” Most people with Chagas disease in the United States acquired their infections in endemic countries. Although there are triatomine bugs in the U.S., only rare vector borne cases of Chagas Disease has been documented. Infection is most commonly acquired through contact with the feces of an infected triatomine bug (or "kissing bug"), a blood-sucking insect that feeds on humans and animals. Infection can also occur from: mother-to-baby, contaminated blood products, an organ transplanted from an infected donor, laboratory accident, or contaminated food or drink, which is …show more content…
The initial phase (acute) lasts for about 2 months after infection. During the acute phase, a high number of parasites circulate in the blood. In most cases, symptoms are absent or mild, but can include fever, headache, enlarged lymph glands, pallor, muscle pain, difficulty in breathing, swelling and abdominal or chest pain. In bug) takes a blood meal and releases trypomastigotes in its feces near the site of the bite wound. Trypomastigotes enter the host through the wound or through intact mucosal membranes, such as the conjunctiva. Common triatomine vector species for trypanosomiasis belong to the genera Triatoma, Rhodnius, and Panstrongylus. Inside the host, the trypomastigotes invade cells near the site of inoculation, where they differentiate into intracellular amastigotes. The amastigotes multiply by binary fission and differentiate into trypomastigotes, and then are released into the circulation as bloodstream trypomastigotes. Trypomastigotes infect cells from a variety of tissues and transform into intracellular amastigotes in new infection sites. Clinical manifestations can result from this infective cycle. The bloodstream trypomastigotes do not replicate. Replication resumes only when the parasites enter another cell or are ingested by another vector. The “kissing” bug becomes infected by feeding on human or animal blood that contains circulating parasite. The ingested trypomastigotes transform into epimastigotes in the
It might sound interesting to explore the reason why so many people are currently being affected by these attacks. According to statistics, 1 out of 8 men and 1 out of 4 women will have gallstones or gallbladder problems before they reach the age of 60.
When someone first finds out they have Crohn’s disease, they will probably feel overwhelmed. There are so many questions. Will I be able to work, travel and exercise? Should I be on a special diet? Could my medications have side effects? How will Crohn’s disease change my life? The better informed they can become, the more equipped they will be to be an active member in your healthcare (Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, 2009).
“The carrier rate for Tay-Sachs in the general population is 1/600” (OMIM). Sandhoff Disease is a rare genetic disorder, and it is a severe form of Tay-Sachs that progressively destroys cells in the brain and spinal cord. Since its discovery and analysis of inheritance, there have been advancements of its diagnosis, treatment, research, and its support resources for affected families. Those affected individuals lose motor skills and function of other body parts. As the disease progresses they experience seizures, vision/hearing loss, mental disability, paralysis, and a cherry red spot on the eye. This leads to loss of coordination, alertness, and respitory health. The disease has three forms infantile, juvenile, and late-onset. In infants symptoms usually begin at 6 months, and most don’t live past 3 years old. The juvenile and late-onset cases are mild compared to infants and the life expectancy varies. These mutated genes have many components that go into the evolution and complexity of Sandhoff’s existence.
With no treatment half of patients who enter the second phase die within ten to fourteen days. Similar to yellow fever, malaria was transmitted to humans through mosquito bites, causing symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and vomiting. Difficult to recognize at first malaria continues to cause yellowing of the skin, seizures, and even death; these symptoms normally begin after ten to fifteen days after being contracted. Malaria was brought over to early America through slavery and killed millions of people between the seventeenth and twentieth century. Throughout the growth and expansion of America there was been several disease outbreaks both endemic and epidemic such as small pox, measles, yellow fever, and malaria. Starting with the Colombian exchange and slavery these diseases were brought to the new world and spread like wildfires that devastated populations both native and nonnative. Most commonly known for the death toll on the native Americans these diseases were so costly due to low resistance, poor sanitation, and inadequate
this is the prepatent period. The worms then reside in the heart, lungs, and associated blood vessels. The worms begin to mate and release microfilaria into the blood stream. When a mosquito bites an infected dog it takes in some of the microfilaria in the blood. After 10 to 30 days there is larvae in the mosquito’s salivary gland which can then be passed on to the next dog the mosquito bites.
Disease and parasitism play a pervasive role in all life. Many of these diseases start with microparasites, which are characterized by their ability to reproduce directly within an individual host. They are also characterized by their small size, short duration of infection, and the production of an immune response in infected and recovered individuals. Microparasites which damage hosts in the course of their association are recognized as pathogens. The level of the interaction and the extent of the resultant damage depends on both the virulence of the pathogen, as well as the host defenses.
In August of the year 1680, around present day New Mexico, the Pueblo Indians had begun an uprising against Spanish colonists which resulted in the death of over 400 Spanish. The remaining 2,000 settlers were driven out of the area. The reason for this war was due to the constant oppression and violent treatment of Pueblo by Spanish colonists. For nearly 100 years, starting in 1540, the Pueblo Indians were subjected to successive waves of soldiers, missionaries, and settlers. There was much conflict between the Pueblo and the Spanish due to differences in religion and culture. The most important cause of the Pueblo Revolt was because the Spanish attempted to destroy their religion, banning traditional dances and religious icons. Today we will cover the Pueblo Revolt and why it is an important chapter in American history. (Wikipedia.org)
Tay-sachs disease is perhaps a very dramatic disease because it strikes most keenly at small children and babies. The disease is very rare and fatal. Tay-sachs is a genetic disorder in which harmful amounts of fatty lipids, known as ganglioside GM2, is built up in the nerve cells in the brain. Infants who with Tay-sachs disease, who are not carriers, appear to develop normally for the first few months since their birth, but as the nerve cells become swollen with the fatty material, a severe decline of mental and physical abilities occurs. The child then becomes deaf, blind, and unable to swallow.
Toxoplasmosis is a disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a single celled parasitic organism, one of the world's most common parasites, infecting most warm- blooded species. The only known hosts for the protist are members of family Felidae (domestic cats and their relatives).
Every moment that time passes, a mosquito sucks fresh scarlet blood cells beyond the delicate, hydrated, smooth skin, creating an itchy, crimson, round-like bump that irritates whoever is bitten. There is a vast number of different mosquitoes with distinctive characteristics, and although they are seen as a common threat, some tend to have more extreme side effects than others. For example, the Culex Pipiens, also known as the Northern House Mosquito, is one of the causes of various diseases, such as Japanese encephalitis, meningitis, and urticaria, compared to the Mosquito hawks, also known as the “Daddy-Long-Legs,” that do not bother people nor eat other mosquitoes. Sadly, during the year of 2013, the virus made itself established, but it
It is caused by parasites of the Plasmodium species(in text reference). These parasites are carried by mosquitoes which become infected after biting someone who has malaria. Malaria is then passed on to others when the infected mosquito bites another person. In rare cases malaria can be passed to another person through blood transfusions, organ donations or shared needles.
You wouldn’t think the carrier of this disease would come from a little mosquito bite but it does.
The infection transferred easily as breathing the air of an infected victim in some cases. The disease came in three different forms such as, Bubonic, Sympathetic, Pneumonic but all resulted from the same thing. Although the disease was rarely spread from human to human people were still frightened because it could spread from clothing to a cut in the skin. It also was contagious if you had close contact with a rat or had got bite by a flea.
Malaria is spread when the mosquito picks up the parasites from the blood of an infected human when it feeds. The mosquito will first recieve the malaria parasite from feeding on the blood of a person who may not neccessarily show symptoms of the disease, but has the parasites in their bloodstream. When the mosquito feeds again, these parasites will be passed on to another human being. Symptoms of malaria include fever, shivering, pain in the joints, headache, repeated vomiting, generalized convulsions, and coma. If not treated, the disease, especially that caused by protozoa falciparum, will progress to severe malaria. Severe malaria generally results in death.
This vector behavior leads to mosquitoes’ transmission of harmful diseases including malaria (N. Becker et al., 2010), a severe disease that kills millions around the globe annually. For species of the Plasmodium genus that cause malaria in humans, certain species of anopheline mosquitoes act as hosts, with Anopheles gambiae being studied in most detail by the Hillyer Lab. The process by which pathogens interact with their mosquito hosts varies, but the path of Plasmodium species is rather complex. As stated by N. Becker, Plasmodium species replicate sexually in mosquitoes but asexually in vertebrate hosts (2010). After entering the mosquito midgut by ingestion in a blood meal from an infected vertebrate, the parasite develops into an ookinete, travels to the midgut epithelium, and then forms many sporozoites. These sporozoites are the form of the parasite that travel throughout the hemocoel and eventually enter the salivary glands where they can be transmitted to another host through a blood meal (N. Becker et al., 2010). This pathway is just one example of how a certain parasite interacts with mosquitoes, and each pathogen can interact with and be dealt with differently by the mosquito