Parasitic diseases: malaria
Introduction
Parasitarian diseases constitute an important world public health problem. Its prevalence is greater in Third World countries, where they affect millions of people since they are linked to poverty and precarious health conditions. In developed countries its incidence and severity is increasing due to the increase of immunosuppressed patients, the possible appearance of imported cases should not be forgotten.
It is estimated that there are 2,800 million people infected with Geohelmintos, 1 200 by Ascaris Lumbricoides, 795 by Trichuris Trichiura and 740 million by Uncinaries: Necator Americanus and Achlostoma Duodenale. According to the World Health Organization, there would be 200 million individuals with schistosomas, 120 with lymphatic filariagas and 37 million with Onchcerca Volulus (River blindness). Between 20 and 30% of the world population has a toxoplasma infection gondii. In relation to malaria, there are currently between 300 and 500 million new cases per year, and in that period more than one million children under five years of age die for that zoonosis.
There are currently 8 to 10 million people infected with Trypanosoma Cruzi, etiological agent of Chagas disease in Latin America. A year they originate from 1.5 to 2 million cases of skin leishmaniasis and 500,000 of the visceral form. The parasite arthropods that were of great importance during World War I, causing the death of millions of combatants and civilians who became ill of epidemic exanthematical typhus, transmitted by Pediculus, today maintain their importance, either as biological, mechanical, parasites vectors, parasites,or causing poisoning. That is why, during the development of the document, the most important parasites for medicine will be shown, in the same way, we can see two positions between the parasites are good or bad, with nothing more to add demos to start the document.
Parasitism is defined as a relationship in which one of the participants, the parasite, damages his guest or lives at the expense of him. A guest is any organism from which a parasite feeds. A pathogen is a parasite that produces a disease in its guest, it is also known as the causal agent of the disease. The disease is a state of imbalance in the health of an organism, which can be produced by infectious or non -infectious agents.
Parasites represent the most successful type of life on Earth, since it is estimated that more than 50 percent of organisms are of this type. Parasitism has evolved or appeared on Earth at least 60 times independently in both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. When people think or listen!". However, despite ironic sound, our lives and environmental health literally depend on parasites.
These fulfill very important functions in natural environments, with which ecosystems remain healthy. First, they directly regulate the population sizes of the species they infect through the mortality of individuals.
Despite the population control that these diseases exercise, there are currently overpopulation problems in the world, which negatively affects the quality of life, because more people mean greater pressure on the planet’s resources. Now, what would happen if our medical advances allow us to get rid of all the parasites that affect us.
I think the answer would be that the planet would not have the necessary resources to keep a population that increases without limitations.
Just as there are parasites that control the population growth rate of humans, there is another wide diversity that are continuously regulating populations of other animal species.
Indirectly, parasites affect the interactions that occur between organisms of the same species and other species in ecosystems. There are parasites that can alter the behavior or morphology of individuals. This change produces alterations in interactions with other organisms, which in turn causes changes in the functioning of ecosystems.
An example of the above would be the number of times a mosquito tries to feed on an animal. It has been shown that mosquitoes that are infected with malaria parasites increase the number of times they try to feed compared to the healthy. This increases the probability that the malaria parasit.
The previous two points are normal situations that happen day by day in nature, and this type of parasitic interactions have a very long evolutionary history. So, we can say that this type of negative interactions are a fundamental part of natural environments. Moreover, it has been scientifically demonstrated that an ecosystem full of parasites is a healthy ecosystem, as long as it is not altered.
The analogy that I like to do to explain the importance of parasites in the ecosystem is to think about a window. If we imagine a window and to stay in the selected place, we need three things: the window, a frame that supports and glued it. Now, let’s imagine that the window represents all the organisms of a forest that live on the ground, that the frame is the organisms that live below the forest floor and support what is above, and the glue is all the parasites that areIn that forest. In other words, parasites represent the glue of nature and are the ones that keep in place all the pieces that are part of the forest;Without them, ecosystems would be disarmed as a puzzle that is not framed.
Due to the drastic and accelerated environmental changes that our planet suffers, mainly due to human activity, ecosystems are losing their balance. This directs us towards a time when parasites and their diseases are becoming a true nightmare for health scientists and governments.
The two types of pathogens that have become an economic burden for the countries of the world are:
Emerging infectious diseases, which are evils whose infectious agents are known but have changed their recently clinical presentation, or are new, and that they have recently increased in their incidence, impact or geographic extension and infect new hosts.
Re -emerging diseases, which are those that involve pathogens that had been controlled or eradicated, but that have recently occurred again.
Health can be defined in two parts: human health that is understood as a state of complete physical, mental and social well -being, and not only the absence of diseases;and environmental health that encompasses the environmental factors that could influence human health and is based on the prevention of diseases and the creation of environments conducive to the optimal development of the human population.
A sick person will say that parasites are bad and would like everyone to be eradicated. A biologist or ecologist will say the same because animals get sick and can die, but they are good because they have a vital function in the ecosystem. A doctor will possibly understand the two previous views, but he will say that his work is to eradicate diseases.
Parasites are an indispensable component of natural environments that keep them in balance and healthy. If we eliminated all parasites and their diseases, then other problems would appear such as the shortage of resources to maintain a growing human population. Moreover, with everything and diseases are already suffering the consequences of overpopulation, such as lack of water and famine mainly in many developing countries. Without the diseases that control the world human population and that of other organisms, the earth would already be a desolate and sterile place.
So, the answer to the question is that parasites and their diseases are good from a global point of view, but they are bad from the individual point of view. They are simply a necessary evil for the maintenance of life on earth.
A parasite is an organism that lives on a host organism or inside and feeds at the expense of the host. There are three important classes of parasites that can cause diseases in humans: protozoa, helminths and ectoparasites.
Protozoa
Protozoa are microscopic unicellular organisms that can be free or parasitic life. They are able to multiply in humans, which contributes to their survival and also allows serious infections to develop from just an organism. The transmission of protozoa living in the human intestine to another human being generally occurs by the fecal-oral route. Protozoa living in human blood or tissues are transmitted to other human beings through a vector arthropod.
Infectious protozoa for humans can be classified into four groups according to their mode of movement:
Helmintos
Helmintos are large multicellular organisms that are usually observed with the naked eye when they are adults. Like protozoa, helminths can be of free or parasitic life. In their adult form, helminths cannot multiply in humans. There are three important helminth groups (Helmint. Spiny head worms: the adult forms of these worms reside in the gastrointestinal tract. It is believed that the cliffs are an intermediate form between the baskets and the nematodes. Cylindrical worms: Adult forms of these worms can reside in the gastrointestinal tract, blood, lymphatic system or subcutaneous tissues. For their part, immature states can cause diseases due to infection of various body tissues. Some consider that helminths also include segmented worms;The only important ones from the medical point of view are the leeches. It should be noted that these organisms are not usually considered parasites.
Ectoparasites
Although the term ectoparasites may include in a broad sense to hematophagous arthropods, such as mosquitoshe and remain there for relatively long periods. Arthropods are of them important causes of diseases but are even more important such as vectors, or transmitters, of many different pathogens that, in turn, produce enormous morbidity and mortality from the diseases that cause.
Parasitic infections
Parasitic infections cause a huge load of diseases both in tropics and subtropics and also in more temperate climates. Of all parasitic diseases, malaria is the one that produces the most deaths in the world. Malaria kills approximately 660,000 people per year, most of them young children in sub -Saharan Africa.
Unattended tropical diseases, which suffered the lack of attention from the public health community, include parasitic diseases such as lymphatic filariasis, oncocercosis and dracunculosis. ETDs affect more than one billion people, mostly in rural areas of low -income countries. These diseases are charged a very high price in endemic populations, which includes not being able to go to school or work, growth in children’s growth, deterioration of cognitive and development skills in young children and the serious economic burden that it implies for countriesintegers.
conclusion
Parasites were still used and used in research. Many models with parasites allow us to know the ecological triad better: parasite, host, environment, as well as various importance processes in genetics, immunology and cell biology.
Although most parasitated people have only one infection, and a smaller percentage of sick, due to their high prevalence and morbidity constitute a health problem in all countries where parasitosis are endemic.
It is also important to point out that parasitosis represent a diagnostic and treatment problem in immunosuppressed people. In these individuals with cell and humoral immune depression some protozoan and helminical diseases such as malaria, sleep disease, toxoplasmosis, cryptosporidiasis, microsporidiasis, cyclosporiasis, cystososporiasis (isosporiasis) and stongiloidiasis, cause great alterations that can cause death. It is very likely that in the near future a series of microorganisms, considered today as harmless,
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