Overview

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Offerings

MURDOCH-S2-INT-2018-ONGOING

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Learning activities

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Learning outcomes

1.
Identify to genus or species level, with the aid of taxonomic keys, the major parasites that affect people.
2.
Describe, in general terms, the life cycles and transmission patterns of these parasites.
3.
Perform and interpret common diagnostic procedures in parasitology.
4.
Communicate the results of these procedures concisely and accurately.
5.
Describe the mechanisms by which parasites cause disease.
6.
Describe the methods used to diagnose and treat infections with parasitic protozoans, helminths and arthropods.
7.
Describe the factors that influence parasite distribution and abundance.
8.
Calculate basic epidemiological parameters such as prevalence and intensity.
9.
Describe the principles of disease transmission and how these differ between microparasites and macroparasites.
10.
Understand the role played by parasites in natural ecosystems, and decide when treatment and control programs for parasites are necessary and when they are counter-productive.

Assessments

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Additional information

Unit content:There are three overlapping conceptual frameworks for considering and studying infectious parasitic disease. (1) Medical framework: centred on individual patients and considers disease as the product of a particular pathogen in an individual host. (2) Epidemiological framework: studies the causation of disease in populations, with an emphasis on identifying statistical patterns of disease occurrence and quantifying relative risk. (3) Ecological framework: based on the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of host-parasite interactions and how this influences disease processes. While these frameworks are complementary for understanding and controlling disease, medical and veterinary curricula typically have heavy emphasis on the medical framework, less emphasis on the epidemiological framework, and almost no discussion of the ecology of disease and its application to treatment and control. In this unit, we recognise that disease ecology should be viewed as a fundamental building block upon which other aspects can be added. We begin with a taxonomic overview of parasites that are important to medical science; there is a huge diversity of these, found in two animal kingdoms and several phyla. We then consider how parasites cause disease and how disease can be treated, before we move to an investigation of how disease establishes, moves through, and persists in populations, and how these processes can inform our strategies for parasite control. Finally, we consider the role of parasites in natural ecosystems and the complex interplay of biotic and abiotic factors that determine whether parasites need to be treated and controlled, or whether that may be a counter-productive activity.