Infectious Disease Tutorial
 
Introduction

Case1: Vomiting 

Case 2: Cough & fever

Case 3: Bruising 

Case 4: Sore throat

Case 5: Jaundice

Case 6: Flu & fever

Case 7: Diarrhea

Case 8: Black Robe 

Case 9: Back Pain

Catching the beast

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Quiz Please

More fascinating stuff about malaria.
 
  • RBCs infected with P. falciparium develop little 'knobs' on the membrane surface.
  • These knobs bind to ICAM-1 receptors on the capillary and venule endothelial cells.
  • This is the disaster of cerebral malaria.
    • Not growth of the bug in the brain.
    • Rather, small vessel occlusion.
    • The picture to the right shows this.
  • Intermittent bouts of RBC hemolysis lead to:
    • The characteristic spiking and remitting fever pattern.
    • Massive loss of hemoglobin in the urine, so-called 'black water fever.'
    • The load of hemoglobin kills the tubular epithelium, leading to renal shutdown and death.
  • The HbS of sickle cell disease confers substantial resistance to malaria.
    • Sickled cells adhere to endothelium in areas of low O2 tension.
    • Potassium loss from these hypoxic RBCs kills the parasites.
  • Although there are a number of effective medications to treat malaria,
  • Mosquito control remains the mainstay of public health intervention.
  • Two strains of the bug, P. vivax and P. ovale,  have developed an interesting strategy for surviving periods when no mosquitoes are in the environment. They go into a latent phase (hypnozoites) and can persist in the hepatocytes for months and some people think even years. This feature probably accounts for relapses of malaria long after the initial infection.
 
Wow, I never knew malaria was such a fascinating disease. What's next?         Back

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