JESSIECAH CHICANO DELOS SANTOS BSN-1A

Worksheet in Bio 102: Microbiology and Parasitology (WEEK 17)

Instruction: Answer the following questions:

A. 20 POINTS

1. What are the characteristics of arthropods? Give examples of parasitic arthropods?

- Arthropods form a huge assemblage of small coelomate animals with “jointed limbs” (hence the name
arthro-pods). They exhibit segmentation of their bodies (metamerism) which is often masked in adults
because their 10-25 body segments are combined into 2-3 functional groups (called tagmata). They
exhibit varying degrees of cephalization whereby neural elements, sensory receptors and feeding
structures are concentrated in the head region. Arthropods possess a rigid cuticular exoskeleton
consisting mainly of tanned proteins and chitin. The exoskeleton is usually hard, insoluble, virtually
indigestible and impregnated with calcium salts or covered with wax. The exoskeleton provides physical
and physiological protection and serves as a place for muscle attachment. Skeletal plates are joined by
flexible articular membranes and the joints are hinges or pivots made from chondyles and sockets.
Insects such as ants, dragonflies, and bees. Arachnids such as spiders and scorpions. Myriapods (a term
which means “many feet”) such as centipedes and milipedes. Crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters, and
shrimp.

2. What diseases are caused by arthropods?

- Arthropods include many species of medical or veterinary importance. Among them, several are
responsible for the transmission of some dangerous diseases for humans, such as malaria, Chagas
disease, leishmaniasis, African trypanosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, dengue, yellow
fever, and Zika.

B. 30 POINTS

1. How are parasitic arthropods transmitted to humans?

- The parasite may be spread to other individuals through presentation to an tainted person's blood (for
case, by blood transfusion or by sharing needles or syringes sullied with blood).

2. How to prevent parasitic arthropods infection? Give the stages of infection when you are infected of
arthropod parasites.

- Your treatment arrange will depend on your particular conclusion. Regularly, your specialist will
endorse solutions. For case, they may endorse drugs to treat trichomoniasis, giardiasis, or
cryptosporidiosis. They likely won’t endorse drugs for toxoplasmosis in the event that you’re not
pregnant and something else sound, unless you've got a serious and drawn out disease. Your specialist
may moreover prescribe other medicines to calm your indications. For illustration, numerous parasitic
contaminations can cause loose bowels, which regularly leads to lack of hydration. Your specialist will
likely energize you to drink bounty of liquids to recharge those you lose. All parasites have a life cycle
that involves a period of time spent in a host organism and that can be divided into phases of growth,
reproduction, and transmission. Life cycles of parasites can be further divided into two categories: direct
(monoxenous) and indirect (heteroxenous).
3. Give examples of arthropod parasites that can cause some of the dreaded diseases in human beings

- Three types of sucking lice are important for human health: Pediculus humanus capitis (head louse), P.
humanus humanus (body louse) and Pthirus pubis (crab louse). Lice spend all of their life on one very
specific host and both male and female feed on blood and leave one host only to transfer to another.

- MITES Scabies mite (Sarcoptes scabei) is the cause of scabies and is distributed worldwide. Epidemics
of the disease may occur for long periods but mites may be common at all times in very poor
communities with inadequate washing facilities. The mite transmitted by contact burrows into the skin
on the webbing side of fingers, later spreading to the wrists, elbows and the rest of the body.

C. 10 POINTS

For your home study or independent learning,

 Illustrate the life cycle of the Arthropod parasites.

LIFE CYCLE OF ARTHROPOD PARASITE

D. 20 POINTS

 Research on other important diseases of humans caused by the arthropod parasites. How can people
prevent and control the transmission of diseases? How it can be treated and diagnosed?

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, and ectoparasites. 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 a
human’s intestine to another human typically occurs through 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 other 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 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 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
more than 400,000 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 disease. The
NTDs affect more than 1 billion people worldwide, largely in rural areas of low-income countries. These
diseases extract a large toll on endemic populations, including lost ability to attend school or work,
stunting of growth in children, impairment of cognitive skills and development in young children, and
the serious economic burden placed on entire countries.

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/about.html