Ever wonder what kind of parasites are in your water, or how they can enter in to your body to make you very sick? Well it is most definite that no on want to get sick. The information found in this paper was collected over the past month, either by going to the library or by accessing information off the Internet at home, almost every night. The point that will be given to you is a little in information about the infectious disease called Schistosomiasis. The points the main points will be the causative agents, symptoms, hosts, methods of transmission and history of the disease. So lets see what Schistosomiasis is. Schistosomiasis is a parasite. This parasite is a worm that you get through contaminated water. Urine and feces usually contaminate the water. The worm goes in to your body and migrates to the bladder, rectum, liver, lungs, spleen, intestines and some veins. After the worm migrates to these places this is where it matures and lays its eggs. The disease has the ability to lay two thousand to three thousand eggs per day and can live for twenty years. There are five different kind of Schistosomiasis that effect humans, these different kinds are; S. mansoni, S. Heamatobium, S. japonicum, S. intercalatum and S. mekongi. There are also other kinds of Schistosomiasis that occasionally infect humans, there are; S. bovis, S. mathei, and some avian schistosomes. In some cases the eggs will get flushed out of the host. When this happens it releases miracidia that penetrate in to the snail. The snail is the intermediate host. When in the snail the organism uses asexual reproduction then development of cercariae. The cercariae can survive in fresh water for seventy-two hours. During penetration into the skin of a human the cercariae lose their tails changing into schistosomula. The next thing that happens is the worm migrates to the lungs and in 6 weeks matures in to an adult worm. It causes severe ...
