|
Category: Parasitic Helminths
Atmospheric Conditions Influence Outbreaks of Disease in Europe
A recently published paper in Scientific Reports has found that climate variability in the form of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has had a significant impact on the occurrence of disease outbreaks in Europe over the past fifty years. Researchers in France and the United Kingdom studied 2,058 outbreaks occurring in 36 countries from 114 infectious diseases from 1950 to 2009 and found that climatic variations and seasonal changes in air pressure across the continent attributed to the NAO influenced the outbreak occurrences of eleven diseases. Every conceivable route of transmission – by air, food, water and vector – was influenced by NAO conditions.
Oy Vey!: Pig Tapeworm in the Orthodox Jewish Community
A few months back, Carl Zimmer published a short article on the startling widespread prevalence of neurocysticercosis; the larval infective form of the pig tapeworm Taenia solium that just so happens to infect the human brain. Check it out, but beware!, you will be learning about a parasite that gives unwelcome deep tissue massages in your gray matter and you will see photographic evidence of it.
Everything You Didn’t Want to Know About Cockroaches
Amongst its many epicurean, architectural and otherwise louche charms, New Orleans has another infamous, uncelebrated one: a problematically vibrant cockroach population. Every summer (oh, let’s be honest here: they’re here spring, summer and fall), the German brown cockroach can be seen snatching its way around your house, flitting on sidewalks at dusk, and intimidating the locals.
An Update on Baylisascariasis: Benign Infection in an Elderly Woman
A timely letter was published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal shortly after my article on Baylisascaris procyonis was posted two weeks ago. It describes a quite unusual case of the infection in a recently deceased elderly woman that had lived in British Columbia, Canada. I wanted to write a quick note about this because it changes the dimensions of our understanding of this parasitic infection, challenging the notion of this disease as typically only afflicting infants and toddlers. Additionally, this letter nicely demonstrates how essential autopsies are to the ongoing pursuit of medical knowledge.
Baylisascariasis! The Tragic Parasitic Implications of Raccoons In Your Backyard
This article was published as a guest post on the blog of the Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases (PKIDs) nonprofit on April 2, 2012. It can be visited here in an edited, shorter form. You can find out more about this great organization and their public health mission here.
The re-wilding or “greening” of urban and suburban spaces has been an indefatigable, faddy trend in urban planning for the past two decades. Urbanites like accessible parks and community gardens and food forests and stately trees and along with our car-filled cities. Hell, we name our streets after trees – spruce, elm, oak, pine and so on. These are the things we do to justify our shoddy recycling habits and not giving due care to our carbon footprint. Sustainability is the new mantra, screen-printed on our reusable grocery totes. So it can be troubling when we see the repercussions when we bring nature into the neighborhood and blur the line between urban comforts and rural charms. One of those manifestations can be rodents, coyotes, foxes, opossums, and raccoons joining the ‘hood.
Man’s Best Friend, the Turkana Tribe & a Gruesome Parasite
Dogs are dirty, dirty animals. I know because I’ve had several, which currently includes a mud-loving, cockroach-catching, drooly mess of a boxer who enjoys nothing more than sleeping her way over every soft surface in my house. The fact that dogs also transmit diseases, and an incredible variety of them at that, does not help matters! Parasites, viruses, bacterial and fungal infections! To their owners! To me, maybe you, maybe your friends! Your relationship with your pet is, in short, a lot richer than you could ever imagine. In light of this, I have a real doozy of a story about the relationship between pet dogs and a miserable little parasite set in the barren desert of northwest Kenya.
Body Horrors’ Amuse-Bouches
I’ve hit a bit of a creative roadblock lately, hence the lack of recent articles. Rest assured, I’ve got many ideas but I’ve been debating with myself on their presentation, analysis and what not. In any case, I’ve stumbled upon some pretty neat stuff – pictures, videos and ideas – in the past few weeks that I felt I needed to share. Not all of it is enough for me to expand upon in one single post so I’ve smushed them all together into what I like to call a ‘Body Horrors’ Amuse-Bouche’ that should be enough to tide you over until I have a more substantial, analytical article next week or so. Behold!
Revenge of the Fishball: The Magnificent Fish Tapeworm
You’re complaining of having nightmares about your teeth falling out? I dream of intestinal colonization with a 30 foot tapeworm. Everyone’s got their own hang-ups and quite frankly the largest parasite of man, the freak of nature Diphyllobothrium latum, unnerves me. What’s not to dislike? The longest lifespan of any human parasite and the jaw-dropping lengths it can reach are just a few of its charms.
An unfragmented fish tapeworm excreted after injection of amidotrizoic acid. Arrow identifies the scolex. Inset shows magnification of the proglottids. Click for source.
The Things They Carried: Former POWs, the Burma Railway & Threadworm
I was peering through back issues of Emerging Infectious Diseases as one typically does (amiright? right?) and found a real gem of a letter. A French physician wrote of a special patient that had recently visited his practice, an 83-year old Parisian gentleman complaining of fatigue and weight loss. Upon clinical examination, he discovered the man had hyper-eosinophilia (high numbers of granulocytes, a type of white blood cells) indicating that something might be a bit off – either an allergic reaction or some sort of infection (1). A series of tests were run, including a stool sample, but nothing definitive was detected.
The parasite Strongyloides stercoralis, otherwise known as threadworm due to its filiform shape. What a cutie pie! Image: eHow. Click for source.
Blood Money: Hookworm Economics in the Postbellum South
In the early 20th century, the Rockefeller Foundation embarked upon a massive public-health campaign that radically changed the economic landscape of the Southeastern United States. A parasite, the hookworm Necator americanus, not only had been leeching Southerners of their blood and good health but also of their agricultural productivity and wealth.
DISCOVER's Newsletter
Sign up to get the latest science news delivered weekly right to your inbox!
Science Seeker Award
Open Lab 2012
