Parasitic infections

Parasites

Parasites can enter the body through food or water and settle in the digestive system. Parasites that cause diarrhea include Giardia lamblia, Entamoeba histolytica, and Cryptosporidium.

About Parasites

Entamoeba histolytica,
the parasite that causes amebiasis.
A microscope is necessary to view this parasite.
(CDC Photo)

A parasite is an organism that lives on or in a host organism and gets its food from or at the expense of its host. There are three main classes of parasites that can cause disease in humans: Protozoa, Helminths, Ectoparasites

Protozoa

Protozoa are microscopic, one-celled organisms that can be free-living or parasitic in nature. They are able to multiply in humans which contributes to their survival and also permits serious infections to develop from just a single organism. Transmission of protozoa that live in the human intestine to a human typically occurs by a fecal-oral route (for example, contaminated food or water, or person-to-person contact). Protozoa that live in the blood or tissue of humans are transmitted to humans by an arthropod vector (for example, through the bite of a mosquito or sand fly).

The protozoa that are infectious to humans can be classified into four groups based on their mode of movement:

Sarcodina – the ameba, e.g., Entamoeba
Mastigophora – the flagellates, e.g., Giardia, Leishmania
Ciliophora – the ciliates, e.g., Balantidium
Sporozoa – organisms whose adult stage is not motile e.g., Plasmodium, Cryptosporidium

Helminths

An adult Ascaris lumbriocoides worm.
Their size can range from 15 to 35 cm.

(CDC Photo)


Helminths are large, multicellular organisms that are generally visible to the naked eye in their adult stages. Like protozoa, helminths can be either free-living or parasitic in nature. In their adult form, helminths cannot multiply in humans. There are three main groups of helminths (derived from the Greek word for worms) that are human parasites:

Flatworms (platyhelminths) - these include the trematodes (flukes) and cestodes (tapeworms).

Thorny-headed worms (acanthocephalins) - the adult forms of these worms reside in the gastrointestinal tract. The acanthocephala are thought to be intermediate between the cestodes and nematodes.

Roundworms (nematodes) - the adult forms of these worms can reside in the gastrointestinal tract, blood, lymphatic system or subcutaneous tissues. Alternatively, the immature (larval) states can cause disease through their infection of various body tissues.

Some consider the helminths to also include the segmented worms (annelids) - the only ones important medically are the leeches. Of note, these organisms are not typically considered parasites.

Parasitic Infections

Parasitic infections cause a tremendous burden of disease in both the tropics and subtropics as well as in more temperate climates. Of all parasitic diseases, malaria causes the most deaths globally. Malaria kills approximately 1 million people each year, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.

The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), which have suffered from a lack of attention by the public health community, include parasitic diseases such as lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, and Guinea worm. The NTDs kill approximately 500,000 people annually, largely in rural areas of low-income countries, but it is the enormous burden of morbidity due to these diseases that extracts the largest toll on endemic populations, with lost ability to attend school or work, retardation of growth in children, impairment of cognitive skills and development in young children, and the serious economic burden placed on entire countries.

However, parasitic infections also affect persons living in developed countries, including the United States.