PARASITES INTRODUCTION A parasite lives in close relationship with another organism, its host and causes it harm.

The parasite is dependent on its host for its life functions. Some parasites alter the behavior of the host, while others induce biochemical change in the host cells at the site of infection. Most parasites have a life cycle that often involves several hosts; this means that survival and transmissions between different hosts requires the parasite to exhibit more than one physiologically distinct form. CHARACTERISTICS A. Parasites 1. Ectoparasites live on the skin or hair (e.g., lice); endoparasites live in the host. The rest of the chapter covers human endoparasites. 2. They may be obligate parasites (entirely dependent on the host) or facultative parasites (free living or associated with the host). 3. They rival malnutrition as the major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. 4. Parasites may be present in a host as a commensal organism. Factors such as a low protein diet may favor virulence and growth of organisms such as Entamoeba histolytica. Parasite numbers also influence the severity and progression of disease. Any decrease in immune functioning (particularly cell-mediated) is likely to cause both increased susceptibility to infection and more severe infections. B. Hosts may be one of three types: 1. A host in which either eggs (usually ingested) or very early larval forms develop into larval or intermediate parasite stages is by convention called an intermediate host. 2. A host in which the larval stages infect and mature into the sexually mature adult parasites is called a definitive host. 3. A reservoir host is any host essential to parasite survival and a focus for spread to other hosts (e.g., pigs (swine) for the pig roundworm Trichinella spiralis). IMPORTANCE IN PHARMACY Perhaps the best-known aspect of the significance of parasites is the role they play in causing human disease. Human health not only is affected directly by parasites that can infect humans but also is affected indirectly by parasites that cause diseases in plants and animals that are used as food for humans. Medical parasitologists, pharmacists, pharmacologists, and other scientists use many approaches to combat parasites. Among the areas of research used are epidemiology (the scientific study of factors affecting the health and illness of individuals and populations), chemotherapy (the use of chemical substances to treat disease), immunology (a broad branch of biomedical science that covers the study of all aspects of the immune system in all organisms) and pathology (the study of the processes underlying disease and other forms of illness, harmful abnormality or dysfunction). The knowledge of the characteristics of parasites will help in the development of chemotherapeutic drugs to eliminate human and animal parasites. The discovery of these ant parasitic drugs has benefited the agricultural industry has aided humans in the treatment of disease-causing parasites.