Most prominent parasite with their subsequent diseases / Most prominent Infectious Disease
Asia: S. stercoralis -> strongyloides / TB
Africa: Plasmodium -> Malaria / HIV (AIDS)
North America: Giardia -> Giardiasis (gastroenteritis) / Hepatitis (B and C)
South America: Trypanosoma cruzi -> Trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease) / Cholera
Antarctica: Plasmodium -> blood infections (similar to Malaria – usually in wildlife) - parasite and infectious disease
Europe: Cryptosporidium -> Cryptosporidiosis (gastroenteritis) / Hepatitis (B and C)
Australia: Enterobius vermicularis -> enterobiasis / Influenza virus
“Pet Parasite”
Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) is the one of the four parasites that cause malaria. Infected individuals usually present with fever, chills, arthralgia, anemia, and nausea/vomiting in most cases. Some indiviuduals with more severe infections can have hemoglobinuria, retinal damage, and convulsions. Traditionally patients with malaria present with cyclical occurrence of sudden chills followed by rigor, fever, and sweats that last about four to six hours, and occur every 36 - 48 hours. Some individuals have an almost contiuous fever that some contribute to high intracranial pressure. This may cause cognitive impairments and brain damage, especially in children.
P. falciparum’s primary hosts and transmission vectors are female mosquitoes for the Anopheles genus. Mosquitoes ingest the parasite by feeding on infected humans. The parasites are ingested as gametocytes, and then differentiate into male and female gametes that fuse in the gut of the mosquito. An ookinete is produced and penetrates the gut lining where it produces an oocyst in the gut wall. This oocyst then ruptures and releases sporozoites that migrate to the salivary glands of the mosquito These infected Anopheles mosquitoes then carries Plasmodium sporozoites in their salivary glands in order to infect humans, who are their secondary or intermediate hosts along with other vertebrates.“Pet Infectious Disease”
HIV-1 is a viral infection that is associated with a progressive decrease of the CD4+ T cell count and an increase in viral load or the level of the virus in the blood. This level, along with the patient’s CD4+ T cell count, is used to determine the stage of infection. The symptoms and signs of HIV are dependent on the stage of infection. These stages include acute infection (primary infection), latency, and AIDS. Acute infections usually last for several weeks and include signs and symptoms such as fever, sore throat (pharyngitis), swollen lymph nodes (lymphadenopathy), rash, malaise, oral sores, and muscle pain. The latency stage includes few to no symtoms or signs. This stage can last anywhere from two weeks to twenty years. The last stage of HIV (AIDS) results in opportunistic and other infections as well as cancers and various conditions.
There are four major steps in the life cycle of HIV. These steps include entry, reverse transcription/integration, transcription/translantion, and assembly/budding/maturation. Entry begins with a viral particle attaching to the CD4 protein of an adjacent cell. This allows the viral envelope of the HIV particle to fuse with the cell membrane and release it contents in the cell. Reverse transcription and integration then begin as the HIV reverse transcriptase enzyme converts the viral RNA into DNA. The DNA is then transported to the cell’s nucleus and spliced into the human DNA by the HIV integrase enzyme. It is then called a provirus. This provirus can lie dormant for a long time, but when the cell is activated the transcription/translation step begins. The HIV genes are converted into messenger RNA just like the human genes. The subsequent messenger RNA is then transported outside the nucleus of the cell and used to procuce new HIV proteins and enzymes. Assembly/Budding/Maturation begin with the complete copies of HIV genetic material gathering with the new HIV proteins and enzymes in order to form new viral particles. These particles are then released from the cell. The enzyme protease chops up long strands of protein and constructs mature viral cores. These matured HIV particles are ready to start the process over again by infecting another cell.