KOMPAS.com – There are many diseases caused by parasitic infections, one of them filariasis or better known as Elephant’s legs. Filariasis is a disease caused by filarial worms.
Filariasis is an infectious disease caused by filarial worms that are shaped like threads.
Most filariasis is caused by filarial worm species Wucheria bancrofti and some of them are due to Brugia malayi also Brugia timori.
Filarial worms infect millions of people every year, causing them to suffer from elephantiasis. To understand how filarial worms infect humans, here are filarial worm life cycle!
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The life cycle of filarial worms occurs in two hosts, namely humans and mosquitoes.
Larvae enter the human body
The initial stages of the filarial worm life cycle are worm larvae that enter the human body through mosquito bites.
Previously, filarial worm larvae had developed inside the mosquito’s body. When a mosquito bites a human, the filarial worm larvae enter the human body.
Filarial worm larvae develop in the human body
Inside the human body, the larvae then develop into adult worms. Female filarial worms can grow up to 100 mm in length and 0.3 mm in diameter.
Meanwhile, male worms have a smaller size with a length of 40 mm and a diameter of 0.1 mm.
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Reported from Encyclopedia Britannicathe early inflammatory stage is characterized by lesions, swelling, impaired circulation and enlargement and widening of the lymph channels.
This causes the legs and lower body of people infected with filarial worms to swell and enlarge, so the kerp is known as elephantiasis.
Filarial worms produce microfilariae
Reported from World Health Organizationfilarial worms can live for six to eight years in the human body.
Throughout their lifetime, worms will reproduce and produce millions of microfilariae in the blood and skin of infected humans.
Microfilariae are immature larvae of filarial worms. Microfilariae then move actively in the blood and lymph channels.
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The life cycle of filarial worms in the mosquito’s body
The filarial worm’s life cycle then continues in the body of an intermediate host, namely the mosquito.
Mosquito sucks infected blood
When a person with filariasis is bitten by a mosquito, the microflaria will be swallowed and enter the mosquito’s body.
Reported from Centers for Disease Control and Preventionthe microfilariae then lose their sheath and then migrate through the proventriculus wall and the heart of the midgut of the mosquito and reach the pectoral muscle.
Filarial worm larvae develop in the mosquito’s body
The microfilariae then develop into first-stage filarial worm larvae in the mosquito’s chest muscle. Filarial worm larvae continue to develop inside the mosquito’s body.
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In the end, the larvae will migrate to the prosbocis of the mosquito. Prosbocis is a female mosquito’s mouth structure that penetrates human skin.
The mosquito will then bite the human, transmit the filarial worm larvae, and start their life cycle all over again.
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