A LESSON ABOUT MY PROFESSION/ BY @niglys8

Hello Steemians!

Howdy!
Glad to be a participant of this amazing contest organized by @steem4nigeria community. It's an amazing contest with the topic "A lesson about my profession" I hope you enjoy reading through and also get to learn something new in my blog today.

_{Designed by me}

Introduce yourself and tell us your profession or your skills.

My name is Nwankwo Gift with the username @niglys8 here in the steemit platform. I am a 25 years young Nigerian lady from Abia State precisely in Isialangwa South Local Government Area. I am the eldest in a family of three (3) and happen to be the only female child of my parents. I am a graduate of Nnamdi Azikiwe university Awka, Anambra State where I obtained my first degree in Parasitology and Entomology (Bsc) and currently I am making plans to further my education in my field of study so as to become a parasitologist lecturer that I've always dreamt of becoming. To know more about me, kindly check here

_{I an some colleagues at the laboratory during my internship program}

What will you like to teach us?

Today, I will be teaching you all about "Malaria parasite and how it infects man" A lot of people do not know how deadly this parasite is and as such do not take some good control measures to avoid getting infected with this parasite and also overlook some health care measures that should be taken when infected with the parasite. Yea! very true, malaria is endemic in Nigeria and many Nigerians have become asymptomatic to this parasite, nevertheless, this parasite still continues to be a major public health problem in the world especially in Africa and has contributed to high mortality rates, killing millions of people every year.

Image source

Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite which belongs to the genus plasmodium. This parasite is usually transmitted through the bite of an infected female anopheles mosquito and there are four (4) known species of the parasite known to infect man which are;

• Plasmodium falciparium
• P. vivax
• P. malariae
• P. ovale

Note: P. falciparium is the most common specie known to be prevalent in Africa.

These parasite exhibit a complex life cycle involving the asexual division occuring in man and the sexual life cycle occuring in the female anopheles mosquito. The asexual cycle which occurs in man happens when man gets infected through the bite of an infected female anopheles mosquito. During blood meal, the mosquito pierces the skin of man with it's proboscis and injects saliva containing "sporozoites" into the blood stream of man. And from here, various stages of the cycle begin to happen in man.

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The exoerythrocytic stage:

Exoerythrocytic simply means, "outside of the red blood cells" So this stage happens when the sporozoites leaves the blood stream and enter into the liver to undergo a multiple of divisions to develop into "schizonts" And after the exoerythrocytic stage is complete, the liver cells ruptures and releases merozoites into the blood stream.

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The erythrocytic stage:

Erythrocytes simply means "red blood cells" After the the merozoites are released into the blood streams, they invade the red blood cells where they undergo some further multiplication at the expense of the host, and this is now when the host begin to show some clinical manifestations such as fever, chills, body pains etc

There is also what we call the secondary exoerythrocytic stage whereby some sporozoites enter into a dormant stage to develop into "hypnozoite" which are been reactivated to release merozoites which infects red blood cells after a period of weeks, months or years as the case may be, to cause a "relapse" of the parasite and this is mostly possible in the case of P. ovale and P. vivax plasmodium species

Now when it comes to the sexual life cycle which occurs in the female anopheles mosquito, the infective stage of the parasite (merozoites) is being ingested by the mosquito during blood meal from man. And from the stomach of the mosquito, fertilization occurs and it in turn further develops into a zygote, ookinete and oocyst at a certain time frame. The oocyst further matures, ruptures and releases sporozoites which are moved to the salivary glands of the mosquito for further transmission to man.

Why do we need to acquire this knowledge that you have passed?

From the notes I gave above, you have known how man gets infected with malaria parasite, so this should help you to know how to avoid coming in contact with these mosquitoes that transmits the parasite by

• Taking proper hygiene measures such as staying in a clean environment and also avoiding staying close to stagnant water which is definitely a good breeding site for mosquitoes

• Using quality mosquito net or good mosquito repellent.

• Protecting your body properly with long shirts and trouser especially when outside during dusk and dawn.

I believe this will go a long way in helping us from getting mosquito bites that could in turn get us infected with the parasite.

Talk about how technological advances have affected your field. This can be positive or negative.

Technology has done a lot of good in my field of study. Years back, malaria parasite could only be diagnosed through "microscopy" a lot of patients could only know if they are infected with the parasite by going to the hospital and paying some hospital bills just to get diagnosed. It is not the case now as many rapid diagnostic test kits (RDTs) are now in vogue now for a faster and easy diagnosis at the comfort of your home as long as you know how the test kit works.

Image source

Also, another huge impact of technology in my field of study is, technology has made the control of mosquito bites very easy through the production of good insect repellents and mosquito nets. It has helped a great deal in producing some non-offensive smell single and combination drug therapy in different sizes for an easy oral medication.

Personally, I prefer taking injections to taking drugs due to their offensive smells. I could throw up when I get to smell them, but technology has helped people like me by producing some malaria drugs that do not smell bad at all and also in smaller sizes for easy intake. hahhaha!

Conclusion

Malaria parasite is a very broad topic in my field of study as it also involves other aspects such as pathogenicity, diagnosis, prevention, control and treatment. But with the little I've talked about today, I hope you have known how the parasite is transmitted to man, the different species we have that infects man and also some basic prevention measures that needs to be taken to avoid being infected. Also, I believe you have known today that, Malaria is not just a common disease but a life threatening disease that has greatly contributed to man's death and as such proper hygiene measures should be taken to avoid getting infected with the malaria parasite.

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I hope you got value from my post today!
See you in my next post!🤓