Since primitive times, insects have been parasitized on humans. Their existence on the planet plays a big role. And, in general, parasitic insects have made many changes in the scenario of human development. Today, the influence of parasites on humanity continues.
Thanks to such parasitic insects as fleas, ¾ of the population of Europe died from the plague! But the most terrible disease that is transmitted to humans from insects is malaria.
Insects parasitizing humans and animals pose a serious health threat
In total, more than one million species of insects have been studied. In medical parasitology, parasitic insects are usually called ectoparasites.
Human, domestic and wild animal health depends on insects. A person is capable of contracting them from an animal. You should know which parasite and what diseases it transmits to humans and animals.
Consider the orders of the most famous and common parasitic insects.
Characteristic
Insects are classified according to the type of mouth, appearance and number of pairs of wings. Also, the classification is based on the number of stages passed during metamorphosis.
On the head, in addition to the oral apparatus, there is a pair of antennae that perform the tactile function and the eyes.
Regardless of the type, the oral apparatus has complex structure... The main components are the upper and lower jaw, upper and lower lips, tongue. The upper lip is an outgrowth of the chitinous shell, the lower one is a derivative of the reduced limbs. The device is classified depending on its functional purpose: gnawing in beetles, piercing-sucking in mosquitoes and fleas, licking in flies, sucking in butterflies.
The segmented chest consists of three segments, each containing a pair of limbs, as well as one or two pairs of wings.
Determine who bites at night
To understand which parasites attack after sunset, you need to carefully study the signs of the affected skin areas and relate them to the characteristics of the effects of different insects. Their lifestyle plays an important role. Of the parasites considered, bed bugs, mosquitoes and linen lice attack at night.
If the bites appear only in the dark, and during the day insects do not annoy, then it can be argued that bed bugs have occupied the bed.
Mosquitoes and linen lice can bite around the clock, however, the first of these parasites attack more often at night. Linen lice need food much more often, so they must eat every 3-4 hours. This means that traces of these insects appear during the day. Household fleas only bite in the morning, so they should not be suspected.
Interesting video: The most painful insect bites
Squad Cockroach
Representatives are large insects up to 3 centimeters long with a dorsoventral flattened body with characteristic sexual dimorphism. The mouth apparatus is gnawing. They exist in large groups, due to the presence of specific skin glands synthesizing an odorous secret that attracts other individuals.
The main representatives are black, red and American cockroaches.
From a medical point of view, they are carriers of various infectious diseases, as well as helminth eggs and protist cysts.The second characteristic danger is their ability to attack sleeping babies and gnaw the delicate skin of the nasolabial triangle, while introducing a secondary infection into the damaged areas of the epidermis.
To kill cockroaches, insecticides and baits containing borax are used. Methods are used to prevent them from being reintroduced into the home: remove food leftovers at night, regular cleaning, and patching up cracks on the floor.
Ways to fight
In man
- Bedbug saliva contains a poisonous substance that irritates the skin. To destroy the colony of parasites, it is necessary to close all the cracks in the floor, steam it with an iron or boil the bed linen, and treat the upholstered furniture with a steam mop. Effective methods of control include the treatment of the premises with insecticides. "Intavir" or "Sinusan" will do. Both drugs have proven to be effective.
- Fleas are dangerous by the onset of dermatitis, infection with plague, typhus and tularemia. Most species change owners with ease. That is, having bitten an animal, the same flea will feed on human blood. For control, insecticides are used (Raptor, Pyrethrum). Processing is done twice! The interval is one week. Preventive measures include washing clothes in hot water, cleaning floors, eliminating cracks in the floor and killing rodents.
- Lice also live on completely clean hair. They are easy to get infected in educational institutions, hairdressers, public transport. Preventive measures include frequent hair examinations. To destroy lice, special shampoos (Pedilin) or aerosols (Para-Plus) are used. Some of them can be dangerous for young children! Before treating your child's hair, you should consult a doctor.
In animals
In most cases, pets can be prevented from infesting parasites by taking preventive measures. These measures include:
- Keeping barns and pets clean. In sheds, the walls and floor are regularly treated with lime mortar, all cracks in the floor are caulked, rodents are caught or poisoned.
- At home, the litter of dogs and cats is regularly changed. Wearing an anti-flea collar is mandatory. The wool of animals is examined for the purpose of detecting parasites every one to two weeks. If an infection is detected, shampoo, spray or withers are applied. The latter are not used in puppies and pregnant females.
- To get rid of chewing lice, one of the effective methods is the use of Front Line spray. The drug is good for the prevention and treatment of birds and animals. A good folk remedy for poultry houses is the use of dust baths. The chickens have a container filled with sand mixed with wood ash. Birds willingly "splash" in such a mixture, getting rid of not only chewing lice, but also lice and fleas.
Blood-sucking insects appear in the house under different circumstances, however, representatives of each of the species of this group are attracted by warm-blooded creatures: humans, pets. The first sign of the colonization of a home with parasites is regularly appearing bites. Moreover, contact with different insects has different consequences.
Squad Bedbugs
This order includes bed bugs and kissing bugs, which occupy a significant niche in medical parasitology.
Bed bug
These are insects the size of a dark brown body. up to 8 mm... Typical is a specific unpleasant odor secreted by the skin glands. The oral apparatus is a piercing-sucking apparatus adapted for sucking the victim's blood. The shape of the abdomen changes during feeding from fullness from oval to round.
When illuminated, they hide in dark and inaccessible places, where females also lay eggs. Adults can starve for a long time, however, in the presence of a warm-blooded organism, they attack it at night.The saliva of a pastel bug can lead to the development of allergic reactions.
Kissing bug
The kissing bug is characterized by size up to 3.5 cm, oval in shape and well-developed wings.
It attacks the victim at night, choosing places with more delicate skin: neck, face, nasolabial triangle. After the end of feeding, the bug makes a bowel movement in the wound.
From a medical point of view, it is a temporary ectoparasite, a specific carrier of trypanosomes, the causative agents of Shagos disease (American trypanosomiasis), which are widespread in South America. Also, bug saliva can cause anaphylactoid reactions.
Fight them with insecticides.
Gnus
In addition to the Sinanthropus, there are bloodsuckers who have not left their natural habitat, although some of them can also live in the city. Most of these insects are united by the concept of "gnat". The set of blood-sucking flying organisms "gnus" are insects with two wings of different sizes, united only by the need to drink blood for reproduction. The set of gnats includes:
- horseflies;
- autumn burner;
- mosquitoes;
- midges;
- biting midges;
- mosquitoes;
- tsetse flies.
The very concept of "gnat" came from Siberia, where this word was used to refer to small blood-sucking insects.
On a note!
Because of the midges in the taiga, people are forced to wear mosquito masks. But this does not save much. Midges find cracks and clog even under clothes.
Blind
The largest flying blood-sucking insects in Russia. These are flies that require blood to drink to reproduce. Horseflies live in forest, steppe and desert zones. Most species keep near water bodies, since the development of larvae takes place in a humid environment. Only females drink blood. In addition to the pain of a horsefly bite, insects are dangerous because they carry infectious diseases. This family is actively sucking in the daytime. They prefer heat. In the early morning and at dusk, they do not disturb the animals.
Autumn burner
A small fly, very similar to a brownie. The two are often confused. But the brownie does not belong to the bloodsucking. A distinctive feature of the autumn burner is that it is an insect that drinks blood differently from other bloodsuckers. The burner does not pierce the skin, but scrapes off the top layer and licks off the emerging liquid. In parallel, she releases poisonous saliva that thin the blood.
Blood sucking insects
On a note!
Burners are active during the day during the whole warm season. At the beginning of summer they are not noticed, since the number of these blood-sucking flies is still insignificant. In the fall, before hibernation, the multiplying population gives people a lot of inconvenience.
Mosquito
The most famous insect is a bloodsucker. Even city dwellers are familiar with it, as often these blood-sucking dipterans breed right in the basements of houses. There are many types of mosquitoes, some of them are completely harmless. Of the blood-sucking mosquitoes, females are engaged in parasitism. Without a portion of blood, the mosquito will not be able to lay eggs. Mosquitoes actively hunt at night.
Midge
Small Diptera insects, included in the aggregate "gnus". The midge lives on all continents. Females are blood-sucking, males feed on nectar. Leaves more severe swelling than mosquitoes. The midge does not pierce the skin, but cuts it. He injects saliva with anticoagulants into the wound. Insects are active in calm weather at a temperature of 8-30 ° C. It blows them away in windy weather. Midges carry many diseases that are dangerous to humans.
Borers
Very small insects are bloodsuckers, outwardly resembling mosquitoes. They live everywhere except Antarctica. Mokrets is the name of the family, not the species. There are genera in the family that feed only on nectar or are predators. There are also genera where females are bloodsucking, and males are "vegetarians". Females from blood-sucking species are included in the aggregate "gnat". Insects are capable of carrying infectious diseases.
On a note!
The tsetse fly does not live in Russia, and mosquitoes are found only in warm regions. Like other blood-sucking parasites, mosquitoes are capable of transmitting infectious diseases.
Flea Squad
Insects of this order have a body flattened from the sides with numerous outgrowths of a chitinous membrane in the form of bristles and denticles, which serve to fix on the host's hair. There are no wings; to move the fleas, they use complex limbs in the form of a jumping apparatus. The piercing-sucking mouth apparatus is used to feed warm-blooded animals, including humans, with blood.
Representatives of this species, parasitizing on humans, are human and rat fleas. They are parasitic on human skin and feed on human blood, and also carry the following vector-borne diseases: plague, tularemia, rat typhus. They can also cause human infection with rat and dog tapeworms.
Tropical sand flea has a size of about 1 mm and a yellowish-gray color. Living in the grass and sand of the countries of the American and African continents, it attacks a person and penetrates the skin between the toes, causing sarcopsillosis... This disease can further cause tetanus and gangrene.
Tropical sand flea
Control methods include keeping the premises clean, wet cleaning and rodent control. The use of insecticides and repellents is effective. Walking barefoot is not recommended in tropical countries.
Moose fly
Insect of the bloodsucker family. The second name is a deer bloodsucker, in everyday life it is often called bloodsucking beetles. The species is very numerous in Russia, both in the European and Asian parts. Having found the owner, the insect sheds its wings and remains to live on the animal. Due to the lack of wings, bloodsuckers are often confused with ticks. With these arthropods, flies are similar not only in body color, but also in the tenacity of their legs.
There are 778 species in the family, and they are all blood-sucking parasites.
Bloodsuckers rarely attack a person, but such cases occur. Bloodsucker and horsefly bites are comparable in pain.
Category: Parasites and blood sucking
Not every insect is perceived by people calmly. Sometimes a small beetle or butterfly can only cause negative emotions. And it's not just about children! Even the most calm adults are frightened by the mustachioed and buzzing "first comers".
A wary attitude towards the insect world is inherent in us at the genetic level. Nature prudently protects against hidden threats - accidental bites, and sometimes from direct parasitism. After all, a seemingly harmless midge can turn out to be a malicious nest on the human body, feeding on skin and blood.
Pets also suffer from parasites to no less extent.
The most unpleasant thing is the possibility of parasite exchange (migration) between humans and domestic animals.
This fact causes natural disgust and is fraught with a real danger - some blood-sucking insects tolerate vector-borne diseases.
Lice squad
Lice include head and body lice, which can interbreed with each other and give offspring.
Head lice have a strongly pronounced sexual dimorphism... Males in size up to 3 mm with a rounded posterior end, there are fewer females in which it is bifurcated. The oral apparatus is of the piercing-sucking type. The wardrobes are larger.
Head louse
Lice are ectoparasites that cause pediculosis... Also, their saliva causes itching and burning, as a result of which a gate for secondary infection is formed. In addition, lice are carriers of relapsing and typhus.
Pubic louse has a short, trapezoidal body up to 1.5 mm long. Causes phthyrtosis, characterized by itching and blue spots at the sites of sucking.
Pubic louse
Insects parasitizing animals
Puff lice are a real scourge of poultry and livestock farms. Parasites
clipping the undercoat or fluff, causing exposure of large areas of the skin. They feed on the upper layer of the epidermis, causing severe itching and weight loss in poultry and animals.
Three types of parasites: lice, bugs and fleas feed on the blood of animals and birds. Most bugs and fleas visit their hosts only for the time of feeding, living on the earthen floor or in crevices. These species easily penetrate human dwellings, transferring pathogens from animals to humans. Fleas, for example, are carriers of the plague.
Cattle and sheep are harmed by gadflies. Females lay the larvae under the skin of animals (more often in the area of the legs). During development, the larva moves under the skin, reaching the back. An abscess and fistula form here. The adult larva gets out through the damaged skin and falls to the ground, where it continues to develop.
If the animal managed to gnaw the larva out of the skin with its teeth (this is how horses do), it ends development in the stomach and then goes out along with the feces.
Symptoms of the appearance of worms
- Intoxication - expressed by migraines, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and decreased appetite, up to a complete refusal to eat.
- Allergic symptoms, expressed by skin manifestations in the form of a rash, and from the respiratory system - cough (especially at night), frequent rhinitis and bronchospasm.
- The nervous system reacts with increased irritability, depression, mood swings and sleep disturbances.
- The immune system, as a result of toxic effects, is weakened, and a person begins to get sick with colds and viral diseases.
- Increased gas production, the occurrence of bloating and pain in the stomach of various localization.
- Brittle nails, hair loss, dry and pale skin. It occurs due to the fact that the helminth from the blood sucks useful substances and trace elements.
- A sharp decrease in weight for no apparent reason is a signal to seek medical advice.
How to determine?
Laboratory diagnostics will allow detecting infection in the early stages.
Periodic diagnostics are advised to people from endemic areas and those who are at risk. It is also necessary to check children who spend a lot of time in close children's groups. An analysis passed on time will detect the invasion at the initial stage, which will allow you to quickly start treatment. To obtain correct results, it is worth adhering to the rules for collecting analyzes. The main methods for detecting worms include:
- Hemoscanning is an analysis that helps to determine the state of red blood cells in a person's blood, their mobility and the presence of glued red blood cells.
- A blood test is performed to detect antigens and antibodies to parasites.
- Serological methods for the study of fecal matter and blood.
- Stool and urine analyzes are used as additional diagnostics.
Parasitic infections
Parasitic infections cause a huge number of diseases in the tropics, subtropics, and more temperate climates. Of all parasitic diseases malaria is the cause of most deaths in the world. About 660,000 people die from malaria each year, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Forgotten tropical diseases are parasitic diseases such as lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, dracunculiasis. They affect more than 1 billion people - one sixth of the world's population.
Found in rural areas of low-income countries.
These diseases take a heavy toll on endemic populations. Cause loss of ability to go to school or work, stunted growth of children, impairment of cognitive skills and development of young children.
However, parasitic infections also affect people living in developed countries.
Tapeworms
The Teneiids are a genus of parasites commonly known as tapeworms. Science knows 32 types of tapeworms that parasitize on various animals. However, only two types of helminths affect humans. These are Taenia saginata - bovine tapeworm and Taenia solium - pork tapeworm. Bovine tapeworm lives in the intestines and can reach a length of 2 to 5 meters. There are cases when the size of the parasite reached 10 meters. If you do not take any action, bovine tapeworm can live in the human intestine for about 18-20 years. But the pork tapeworm, also known as tapeworm, reaches a length of 2-3 meters. The tapeworm also lives in the human intestine, which, by the way, is its final owner, but pigs and other animals are intermediate.
Again tapeworm, a very photogenic hematophage
Modern methods of diagnosing parasites in the blood
The doctor must question the patient about what prompted him to go to the hospital. Often it is enough to identify some symptoms that indicate the presence of parasites in the patient's body. However, there are about three hundred varieties of worms, so it is also important to pass tests to identify which type of worm has struck the patient.
Before going to the doctor for tests, it is recommended that the patient maintain a diet for about two weeks, for a more accurate diagnosis of blood. It is worth giving up fatty foods, spicy foods, and alcohol. It is not recommended to take various medications, especially hormonal drugs, since they will always be present in a person's blood, making it difficult to conduct laboratory studies.
The analysis of feces in this case will be useless, since it is impossible to detect the larvae of parasites at the initial stage.
As the main diagnostic method, blood is taken from a vein, and the patient should not have breakfast before the analysis. After taking blood, it is examined in vitro, that is, in a test tube for the presence of various parasites. If an infection is detected, then the doctor must provide a course of treatment based on the age of the patient, the degree of infection and his weight.
The most effective and at the same time innovative diagnostic method is hemoscanning. A drop of blood is examined under a microscope, it is magnified many times over, and this makes it possible to determine whether the patient is sick or not. A magnification of several thousand times allows you to see even the smallest changes under a microscope, the results are instantly displayed on the monitor.
Sea lamprey
Hyperoarties are commonly known as sea lampreys. This is a very primitive species, similar in appearance to eels, although in no way associated with them. The body of the lamprey is jelly-like and cylindrical, without scales and very slippery. The mouth of the sea lamprey is round in shape with suction cups, so the animal can feed on anyone's blood. In length, sea lampreys can reach 1 meter, the weight of these hematophages can be up to 1 kg. Once the lamprey attaches itself to its prey, its many teeth and tongue scratch the skin to extract blood. The favorite prey of sea lampreys are sharks, salmon and other marine mammals.
Some sea lampreys can reach 120 cm in length and weigh 2-3 kg
Read more stories about the amazing inhabitants of our planet on our channel in Yandex.Zen.
How to remove worms?
The effectiveness of treatment depends on the correct diagnosis and the patient's compliance with all prescriptions. The principles of action of antihelminthic agents are the destruction of the parasite from the inside or the immobilization of the parasite, followed by natural excretion. Antihelminthic drugs are prescribed only by a doctor due to toxicity. Before starting treatment for worms in the blood, you need to follow a diet and give up alcohol. During treatment, it is important to take sorbents and live bacteria. Preparations with the help of which they carry out cleansing from parasites:
- "Helmintox" - copes with different types of parasites;
- "Fenasal" and "Nemozol" - effective in the fight against nematodes;
- "Piperazine" - used in children and pregnant women;
- "Vormil" and "Azinox" - affect most types of helminths.
Treatment with folk remedies
Drug treatment together with folk remedies give a positive result.
You can remove parasites from the blood using traditional methods. The most commonly used herbal infusions are wormwood and tansy, clove seeds, walnut shells and pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds are the only folk remedy recognized by practical medicine as an effective means of fighting parasites. Traditional medicine also recommends the use of freshly squeezed carrot juice, celandine juice and elecampane. A decoction of wormwood and tansy is used to prepare cleansing enemas and infusions. Alternative medicine methods are used as a prophylaxis or in addition to drug treatment.
