Reduvid bug
• | AKA assassin bug, kissing bug, cone-nosed bug |
• | large insects with distinct elongate cone-shaped heads |
• | vectors for: T. cruzi (Chagas disease) |
• | transmits through defecation |
• | Romania’s sign – periorbital swelling |
Fleas
• | long legs (jumpers), no wings |
• | therefore bite on lower legs |
• | vector for – plague (bubonic), endemic (murine) typhus |
jigger flea (Tunga penetrans)
• | AKA burrowing flea, chigoe |
• | not to be confused with a “chigger” (a mite) |
• | burrows into the skin of the toes or soles of feet; produces eggs and dies still embedded in the tissue |
Flies
MYIASIS
• | human bot fly (Dermatobia hominis) |
• | females lay eggs on the abdomens of captured mosquitoes, who deposit the eggs on the skin of a warm-blooded host (e.g. humans) |
Bartonella bacilliformis
• | two stages of the same infection: |
• | Oroya fever – acute febrile stage |
• | Verruga Peruana – chronic delayed stage |
• | weeks to months after acute infection |
• | clinically and histologically the lesion are virtually identical to bacillary angiomatosis (but organisms stain with Giemsa in verruga peruana) |
• | endemic to Peru (500-3200 meters above sea level in the Andes) |
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