Infectious Diseases

Water is one of the most common incubators when it comes to little beasties that cause tropical diseases. Onchoceriasis, also known as river blindness, is one of those diseases which originate from the water. It is a parasitic disease caused by a worm which lives in the water and is the one of the top causes of blindness from infection.

The worm which causes river blindness is the Onchocerca volvulus and is quite thin and cannot really be seen by the naked eye. The disease is transmitted from person to person from the bite of a blackfly. The larvae passed onto an unsuspecting victim turns into adult worms which can live for up to 15 years in the body!

How River Blindness Happens

Mosquitoes are at the heart of many tropical diseases and that includes the Chikungunya Fever. It is a viral infection spread by biting mosquitoes infected with a virus. The symptoms from this illness resemble those of dengue fever and can include arthritic pain in the joints, rashes and fever. While it is not usually life-threatening, it can be serious and keep you down and out for a while.

While the symptoms of Chikungunya fever have been traced back to the 19th century in India and other Asian countries, it wasn't until the mid 1950's that the virus causing the fever was pinpointed and the mosquito transmission validated. Typically, this fever, often nicknamed Chik fever, occurs in epidemics with a number of years between each outbreak.

You may never look at a pig in the same way again if you develop cysticercosis after dining on pork in a foreign country. The pork tapeworm called Taenia solium is the source of the Cysticercosis infection. Your body becomes infected when you ingest the larvae from the pork tapeworm and these worms form cysts. If any cysts form in the brain, then the disease is called neurocysticercosis.

People rarely get this infection from the pork tapeworm in the United States and Muslim countries don't normally have occurrences as they do not eat pork. However, developing countries with little in the way of sanitation and waste management practices and have roaming pigs that could potentially eat the excrement from humans are likely to have occurrences of cysticercosis with some frequency.

Symptoms of Cysticercosis

Contaminated food and water are two of the biggest culprits that spread disease around the world. One of the most prevalent diseases found in countries with poor sanitation efforts is amebiasis. This disease is caused by entamoeba histolytica, a single celled parasite.

Who is at Risk?

Virtually anyone can get amebiasis and it is most common in developing and third world countries where sanitary conditions are poor. This disease is usually not seen in the United States unless an immigrant from one of the third world countries visits here. Travelers to these countries can also bring the disease home with them.

Gay men who have sex with each other can contract the disease, but they may not exhibit any symptoms. In addition, crowded living areas and institutions with poor water treatment and waste management may also harbor this one-celled parasitic entity.

Primary Ways Infection Occurs

There are a few tropical diseases that affect both animals and humans. Rift Valley fever or RVF is a viral disease that is spread mainly through mosquito bites and because these pests take their blood meal wherever they can get it, both domesticated animals and humans can contract the disease from them.

Rift Valley fever is a phlebovirus and identified in the early 20th century, first in livestock in Africa. Typically, you will find this disease in southern and eastern Africa as well as Madagascar, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern areas. Epidemics of the disease typically occur when the environment or relationship between animals and humans are disrupted.