Question

Name two diseases caused by protozoans. What are their causal organisms?

Answer 1

Protozoans:

1. Protozoa are heterotrophic, unicellular, eukaryotic creatures.
2. They are either parasites or free-living.
3. Protozoa are organisms that live in water.
4. They may be found in both freshwater and saltwater.
5. Diseases caused: Malaria and Toxoplasmosis.

Malaria

Causative agents:

1. The female anopheles mosquito bite is the primary method of transmission of malaria, a protozoan infection of the red blood cells.
2. The Plasmodium genus of protozoa is what causes malaria.
3. Human infection is caused by four different species: P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae, and P. falciparum.
4. Malaria is still common in the tropics, although it is all but gone in temperate regions.
5. The length of the fever paroxysms that are a hallmark of malaria varies on the specific Plasmodium species that is the causal parasite.

Symptoms:

1. Malaria symptoms include fever and a flu-like disease with chills, headaches, muscular pains, and fatigue.
2. There may also be nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
3. Due to the loss of red blood cells, malaria may result in anemia and jaundice (yellow skin and eyes).

Toxoplasmosis:

Causative agents:

Most warm-blooded animal species, including humans, are infected by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which results in the illness toxoplasmosis.

Symptoms:

1. Swollen lymph nodes, particularly in the neck area, muscle discomfort, soreness, headache, fever, feeling generally ill, lungs that are inflamed, muscular inflammation in the heart, inflammation of the retina, for instance, in the eye (at the back of the eye).
2. Due to dispersed chromatin, the nucleus appears distributed; the vesicular nucleus has a core body termed an endosome or nucleoli. Apicomplexans have DNA in their nucleoli, but amoeboids lack DNA in their endosomes.
3. Micronuclei and macronuclei are found in Ciliates. The cytoplasm and other locomotory projections like flagella, pseudopodia, and cilia are all enclosed by the plasma membrane.