A city-wide hunting order spread to Guangzhou overnight.
The object to be arrested this time is not a fugitive, but a reward of 8 yuan / cone bug.
As a result, the cone bugs, as the source of the scourge of "new AIDS", set off a heated discussion in the city, and everyone shouted and beat.
In fact, the crimes it commits have nothing to do with AIDS, but they can also cause transmission and death.
And it is a normal cold and fever after a sudden reversal of the disease worsened, warm boiled frog type of unhealable death.
Cone bugs are keen to suck human blood, so they also achieve the purpose of spreading human diseases.
The dark brown shell, bright and hidden spots and slender sucking mouthparts seem to be declaring war on humanity.
It usually bites areas of the person's face with thinner skin, such as the lips and eyelids.
So people also gave it a name that did not match its image - kissing worm.
The reason why the cone bug has become the number one criminal on the bounty list is actually a big pot.
It is not a threat to humans by itself, and a parasite hidden in its body is the real killer.
The pathogen, Trypanosoma cruzi, is a protozoa that survives only when it parasitizes in animals.
Trypanosomiasis is a single-celled form
The cone bug bites and bleeds from the human skin, while also excreting a small amount of feces and urine at the wound.
At this time, Trypanosoma Craigsidae took the opportunity to sneak into the human body through the exposed bodily fluids and successfully completed the replacement of higher-level host organisms.
Living comfortably in the human body is not satisfied, it relies on its strong reproductive capacity and circulatory system, and gradually spreads from the blood to the heart, digestive muscles and other parts.
Bringing the terrible lethal disease to the host on which it depends, Chagas disease.
When Darwin was traveling through South America on a global biological research trip, he was accidentally infected with Trypanosoma cruzi.
However, Chagas disease was not named at that time.
So Darwin was tormented by this mysterious disease for decades.
Eventually, along with other diseases, he was crushed to death.
Darwin Round the World Tour
But there is no need to generalize, and not all trypanos are used by Trypanosoma cruzi.
Trypanos are found all over the world, and the currently infested trypanosomiasis is concentrated mainly in Latin America.
Chagas disease is therefore also known as American trypanosomiasis.
Chagas disease, once endemic only in Latin America, has now spread to other continents.
Distribution of Chagas disease worldwide
In fact, there are no cases of disease in China at present.
However, in order to prevent the investigation of whether there are potential risks and unknown patients, the Guangzhou CDC issued the "wanted order".
Since SARS, China's disease prevention and control has adopted very cautious and advanced governance measures.
Chagas's disease, which was crowned the title of "new AIDS", really ignited the panic of the masses in an instant.
The most direct reason why Chagas disease is related to AIDS is that they are transmitted in very similar ways and have equally lethal effects.
Both diseases can be transmitted through sexual contact, blood and mother-to-child transmission among people.
But most of the causes of Chagas disease are mainly transmitted through the bites of blood-sucking insects.
This also has to be traced to the differences in the two pathogens.
How AIDS is transmitted
The causative agent of Chagas disease is a parasite, while AIDS is caused by the HIV virus.
Both the reproductive capacity and the degree of infection of viruses are beyond the reach of parasites as protozoa.
As a result, the spread and scope of Chagas disease is far from catching up with AIDS.
HIV virus
Both diseases ultimately cause deaths from complications caused by infections of other causative agents.
AIDS is the destruction of the immune system, and usually any inconspicuous small virus can easily cross the useless defenses and cause the human body to die.
Chagas disease, on the other hand, relies on trypanosoma cruzi to do so.
It mainly infects the heart and digestive muscles in the later stages, causing patients to suffer from corresponding inflammation and die.
Although the chance of complications is 30%, it is not as terrible as AIDS.
Stained Trypanosoma cruzi under the microscope
Although Chagas disease has some similarities with AIDS, the gap between the two is not small.
Therefore, to force Chagas's disease to be labeled as a "new type of AIDS", it is inevitable that there are some exaggerated elements.
But perhaps the purpose of the propaganda is to stir up tension and encourage everyone to participate in the arrest.
Since the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas discovered and named the disease in 1908, there have been about 10 million people who have fallen ill.
Chagas disease killed about 8,000 people worldwide in 2015.
Rural areas of Central and South America are infested with pests and have a weak awareness of hygiene and cleanliness among the population.
As a result, the trypanosus parasitic trypanosus spread and attack humans recklessly.
These areas naturally became the hardest hit areas of Chagas's disease.
There is usually an initial acute phase of about two months after the introduction of Trypanosoma cruzi.
During this time, it lurks relatively calmly in the patient's bloodstream and is difficult to detect.
Symptoms such as fever, headache, or lymphadenopathy may occur.
But often these conditions are easily reminiscent of the common flu.
And 90% of patients resolve spontaneously within a few weeks of developing symptoms, so they mostly ignore it.
One of the symptoms of the disease: swelling of the eyelids
However, the resolution of the disease may be a sign of the persistence of the infection.
Before the acute phase has passed, Trypanosoma cruzi in the blood swims unhindered in the human environment with the circulation of body fluids.
Once they stop in the nervous system, digestive system or heart, the disease directly transitions from the acute phase to the chronic phase.
About 10% of patients will unfortunately experience this situation.
Trypanosoma cruzi enters human muscle cells
Trypanosoma cruzi mainly parasitizes the muscles of the heart and digestive tract.
Their overbreeding in these areas causes enormous damage to the corresponding organs.
About two-thirds of patients with chronic symptoms are at risk of sudden death due to heart damage caused by abnormal heart rate and other diseases.
About one-third of patients face digestive system damage and complications such as megacolon, which also increases the burden on the heart.
Trypanosoma cruzi causes the rupture of the aperture of the fibrous ring of the heart
When Trypanosoma crarrhea invades the nervous system, especially the central nervous system, a series of disease manifestations under the action of neuritis, including dementia and movement disorders, may occur.
Usually, the "travel destination" of Trypanosoma gram is not a single, they may be distributed in various parts of the body at the same time.
Therefore, the multi-pronged, one-by-one attack power is its most powerful killer.
Parasites infect the mechanisms of the brain from the intestines
Outbreaks of Chagas disease have not yet been detected in our country, while another type of trypanosomiasis is already emerging.
In August 2017, a woman in Fujian who had just returned from a trip to Kenya, Tanzania and other places in Africa continued to have a high fever, accompanied by symptoms such as dizziness and fatigue.
After admission to the hospital, she was found to have trypanosomes of trypanosomes in her blood.
The blood contains trypanosomes
This is another member of the large family of trypanosomiasis that can cause disease to people - Trypanosoma brucella.
Even earlier, people in sub-Saharan Africa began to suffer from trypanosomiasis, with no less than three large outbreaks.
But on the African continent, which crosses the entire Atlantic Ocean, the dominant trypanosome has also changed to a subspecies.
The frequent trypanosomiasis there is African sleeping sickness, and the causative agent is trypanosomiasis brucella.
Fujian women who returned from Africa had the misfortune to bring the parasite back.
Fortunately, she went to the hospital early in the disease, and the trypanosomes still did not spread in the blood.
Patients get better quickly after treatment with the drug with suramin sodium.
This is the first case in my country where African sleeping sickness has been detected and cured.
Since then, the CDC has also begun to pay attention to whether such infectious trypanosomiasis has spread to the territory.
The habits of the same species of trypanosomes are slightly different.
Trypanosoma brucella no longer enters the human body with the help of cone bugs, but instead targets the tsetse fly.
Tsetse flies are endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and have a similar mechanism of blood-sucking, excretion and transmission to cone bugs.
However, there is no trace of tsetse flies in the Americas, so Trypanosoma cruzi has to find the cone bug as a substitute.
Tsetse flies, scientific name tsetse flies
Trypanosoma brucella is divided into two species: Trypanosoma Rhodesia and Gambian Trypanosoma.
The main culprit of 97 per cent of these diseases is The Gambian trypanosomiasis.
Rhodesian trypanosoma, on the other hand, parasitizes mainly in livestock or wild animals, especially in cattle.
Cattle suffering from animal trypanosomiasis
The attack of Trypanosoma brucei on the human body is also divided into two stages.
The first stage is the hemato-lymphatic phase.
This period is similar to Trypanosoma cruzi, where it parasitizes the blood and lymph to cause headaches, fevers and other symptoms.
In the second stage, they have little interest in muscles, and the central nervous system is more attractive to it.
The blood-brain barrier cannot stop the mighty Trypanosoma brucellois, which easily crosses to infect the central nervous system.
At this time, the disease enters the neurological phase, also known as the meningoencephalitis phase.
Trypanosoma brucellosis under the microscope
Their damage to the central nervous system of the human body is mainly reflected in the interruption of the sleep cycle.
Infected patients fall into irregular deep sleep and awakening, usually with lethargic seizures during the day and difficulty falling asleep at night.
Consciousness becomes blurred, muscles are weak throughout the body, and there may even be paralysis of limbs.
As the infection worsens further, patients sleep longer and longer.
Eventually, because of organ failure, he never woke up again.
More than half a century ago, drugs for the treatment of Chagas and sleeping sickness were developed.
Benzidazole and nifurmus are highly effective drugs to kill trypanosoma americana and treat Chagas disease.
In the acute phase, the therapeutic effect of the drug can reach almost 100%.
However, as the duration of infection increases, the efficacy of the drug will also be significantly reduced.
Because sleeping sickness appears earlier, the research and development of its treatment drugs is more advanced.
In the first stage of the disease there are drugs such as pentamidine and suramine for treatment.
In the second stage, although there are also corresponding melar phosphine and eflornithine.
However, they generally have problems such as large side effects, complex treatment courses, and great toxicity to the human body, which are more difficult to administer.
The WHO provides free medication to disease-prone areas
Therefore, the best treatment period for both diseases is in the first stage of the disease, which is still shallow.
However, the headache, fever and other symptoms that appear in the first stage are not easy to attract the attention and prevention of patients.
Once trypanosomiasis further completes the deeper infestation, the disease enters the second stage, and the limitation of imperfect treatment conditions often makes rescue difficult.
Therefore, it was only a few seemingly random bites by mosquitoes, but it may bring serious consequences.
The serious reward order with a hint of ridicule pushed the trypanosomiasis that was once thought to be far away from us to the cusp of the storm.
This vicious disease that is ravaging the U.S.-Africa continent really deserves vigilance and attention.
But people don't have to panic too much, after all, China has taken disease control measures one step ahead of others.
And medical research is also rapidly developing in the direction of solving problems.
*References
Chagas disease. Wikipedia.
WANG Shengshu, YIN Hong, WANG Shanyu, et al. Research progress of Trypanosomiasis in the Americas[J]. PLA Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2013, 31(6):556-558.
Welburn S C, Fèvre E M, Coleman P G, et al. Epidemiology of humanAfrican trypanosomiasis. [J]. Trypanosomiases, 2004.
Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis). World Health Organization.
Trypanosomiasis, human African (sleeping sickness). World HealthOrganization.
Hernández C, Cucunubá Z, Parra E, et al. Chagas disease(Trypanosoma cruzi) and HIV co-infection in Colombia. [J]. International Journalof Infectious Diseases, 2014, 26:146-148.