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Protozoan infections are responsible for diseases that affect many different types of organisms, including plants, animals, and some marine life. Many of the most prevalent and deadly human diseases are caused by a protozoan infection, including African sleeping sickness , amoebic dysentery , and malaria .
Human parasites are divided into endoparasites, which cause infection inside the body, and ectoparasites, which cause infection superficially within the skin. The cysts and eggs of endoparasites may be found in feces , which aids in the detection of the parasite in the human host while also providing the means for the parasitic species to exit ...
Routes of exposure and infection include ingestion of undercooked meat, drinking infected water, fecal–oral transmission and skin absorption. Some types of helminths and protozoa are classified as intestinal parasites that cause infection—those that reside in the intestines. These infections can damage or sicken the host (humans or other ...
Main article: Human parasite Endoparasites Protozoan organisms Common name of organism or disease Latin name (sorted) Body parts affected Diagnostic specimen Prevalence Source/Transmission (Reservoir/Vector) Granulomatous amoebic encephalitis and Acanthamoeba keratitis (eye infection) Acanthamoeba spp. eye, brain, skin culture worldwide contact lenses cleaned with contaminated tap water ...
Medical parasitology is concerned with three major groups of parasites: parasitic protozoa, helminths, and parasitic arthropods. [2] Parasitic diseases are thus considered those diseases that are caused by pathogens belonging taxonomically to either the animal kingdom, or the protozoan kingdom. [4]
There may be as many as 300,000 species of parasites affecting vertebrates, [9] and as many as 300 affecting humans alone. [10] Helminths of importance in the sanitation field are the human parasites, and are classified as Nemathelminthes (nematodes) and Platyhelminthes, depending on whether they possess a round or flattened body, respectively. [8]
Free-living amoebae (or "FLA") [1] are a group of protozoa that are important causes of infectious disease in humans and animals. Naegleria fowleri is often included in the group "free-living amoebae", [ 2 ] [ 3 ] and this species causes a usually fatal condition traditionally called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).
In the system of classification published in 1964 by B.M. Honigsberg and colleagues, the phylum Protozoa was divided according to the means of locomotion, such as by cilia or flagella. [ 26 ] Despite awareness that the traditional Protozoa was not a clade , a natural group with a common ancestor, some authors have continued to use the name ...