Parasitic infections Flashcards
What are the eukaryotic pathogens?
Helminths, protozoa and arthropods.
What are arthropods?
Multicellular invertebrae animals which cause disease such as fleas, mites and and insects.
What are the multicellular eukaryotic pathogens?
Helminths and arthopods
What are the unicellular eukaryotic pathogens?
Protozoa which feed on organic matter. Divided into amoebas, flagellates, ciliates and sporozoas.
What are neglected tropical diseases?
Conditions caused by a range of pathogens in tropical and sub-tropical regions that primarily affect people in poverty conditions in close contact with animals and vectors.
What are the considerations for parasitic infections?
Parasitic diversity, the parasite life cycle (such as tissue specificity and sequestration) concomitant immunity to reinfection, intensity of infection and host-pathogen interactions
What are the important considerations for treatment?
It is a eukaryotic pathogen and shares similar cellular processes to our own, therapeutic window may be very narrow and most anti-bacterials are ineffective
What is an ideal anti-parasite drug?
Selective toxicity to parasites, effective at different life stages of the parasite, unlikely to develop resistance, easy to administer and cost effective.
Where do most deaths from malaria occur?
Subharan Africa in children below 5 years
Where does sexual reproduction of plasmodium occur?
In the stomach, midgut and salivary glands of Anopheles
What does a blood film of a patient with malaria show?
Erythrocytes with rings and infected trophozoites.
How is malaria diagnosed?
RDT/ rapid diagnostic test, blood films or PCR diagnosis
Which malaria strain is the only one to show rings on a blood film?
Plasmodium falciparum- this species can infect RBC of any age and has the highest virulence. The ring is crescent shaped.
Which malaria strain targets senescent RBC?
Plasmodium malariae- infected RBC will tend to be smaller than surrounding cells and have a band marker with a rosette dots shape
Which malaria strain targets reticulocytes?
Plasmodium ovale which causes an oval shape and plasmodium vivax with two characeristic dots
What is quartern malaria?
Fever onset occurs every 3 days caused by rupture of mature schizonts in erythrocytes in p.malariae and p.falciparum
What is tertian malaria?
Fever onset occurs every 2 days caused by rupture of mature schizonts in erythrocytes in p.ovale and p.vivax
Which malaria strains are tertian?
Plasmodium vivax and plasmodium ovale
Which malaria strains are quartern?
Plasmodium malariae and falciparum