Elephant Foot Disease Or Lymphatic Filariasis

Elephant foot disease or lymphatic filariasis is caused by the Filariodide worm that infects lymph nodes. This worm enters the human body with mosquitoes.

Elephant foot disease is commonly found in tropical regions. Overall there are 1.23 billion people worldwide who are at risk of being infected with this disease. 

How Can Elephant Leg Disease Spread?

As a tropical country, Indonesia is a comfortable place for mosquitoes to breed. Therefore, it is only natural that more than one hundred million people are at risk of being infected with this disease.

When a mosquito sucks on someone's blood containing filarial worms, the worm will also infect mosquitoes. Furthermore, mosquitoes that have been infected will spread filaria worms when biting others. The filarial worm larvae will then stay in the lymph vessels.

It is in the lymph vessels that filarial worm larvae will grow up and multiply. Adult worms themselves can live up to 7 years in human lymph vessels. They will spread millions of worms into blood vessels so that when bitten, mosquitoes can transmit them to others.

What are the symptoms of elephantiasis?

In fact, someone who is infected with this worm cannot be immediately ascertained because this disease has several phases, namely without symptoms, acute, and chronic.

Asymptomatic phase

When someone is infected with a filarial worm, he or she will not immediately show certain symptoms. However, in this phase actually there has been damage to the lymph flow system and spleen, along with changes in the immune system.

Acute phase

It is characterized by inflammation of the skin, lymph nodes, and lymph vessels, which usually accompany chronic swollen lymph nodes, and elephantiasis. This is caused by the immune system's response to parasites. Symptoms that can occur in the acute phase include fever, swollen lymph nodes, and swelling in the legs and scrotum.

Chronic phase

Upon entering the chronic phase, swollen lymph tissue and thickening of the skin on the legs and testicles can occur. In women, swelling can occur in the breasts and genital organs.
How To Prevent And Treat Elephantiasis
Because it involves mosquitoes as intermediaries, the way to prevent elephantiasis is to avoid mosquito bites as much as possible, especially in the morning and evening. The trick is to clean the environment so that mosquitoes do not nest, sleep using mosquito nets, wear long clothes while doing activities outside the home, and apply mosquito repellent on the skin that is not covered with clothes.
Taking regular worm medicine every year can kill worm larvae in the bloodstream. If someone has suffered from elephantiasis, he or she will be advised to take antiparasitic drugs, such as albendazole and ivermectin, or with diethylcarbamazine citrate. These drugs are effective for cleansing the blood of microfilariae, while preventing the spread to others. To eradicate adult worms, doxycycline drugs can be used. The use of the above drugs also acts as a prevention against elephantiasis transmission in the community.
For filarial worm infections that cause large swelling in the scrotum or the part of the eye, surgery may be needed.
Because basically all people are susceptible to elephantiasis, then it is only natural to be vigilant and preventive from an early age. Maintaining environmental hygiene and personal hygiene is also important to prevent the spread of elephantiasis.

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Disease Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy is a disorder of movement, muscle tone, or posture that is caused by injury or abnormal development of the brain, most often before birth. Signs and symptoms appear during infancy or preschool. In general, cerebral palsy causes movement disorders associated with excessive reflex or stiffness, abnormal posture, involuntary movements, unsteadiness when walking, or some combination of these disorders. The effects of cerebral palsy on functional abilities vary widely.

People with cerebral palsy often have other conditions associated with abnormal brain development, such as intellectual disabilities, vision and hearing problems, or seizures. A broad spectrum of treatments can help reduce the effects of cerebral palsy and improve the functional capabilities of a person.

Causes of Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy is caused by a disorder or disturbance in brain development, typically before a child is born. In many cases, the exact trigger of this disorder is unknown. Factors that could cause problems with brain development, including:

1. Mutations in genes that control brain development.
2. Infection in mothers that affect fetal development.
3. Fetal stroke, interruption of blood supply to the developing brain.
4. Lack of oxygen to the brain (asphyxia) associated with difficult labor.
5. Baby infections that cause inflammation in or around the brain.
6. Trauma, such as head injuries in infants from motor vehicle accidents, falls, or child abuse.

Signs and symptoms of cerebral palsy can vary widely. And coordination of movement disorders associated with cerebral palsy may include:

1. Disorders of the muscles, which is too stiff or too weak
2. Stiff muscles and exaggerated reflexes (spasticity)
3. Stiff muscles with normal reflexes (stiffness)
4. Lack of muscle coordination (ataxia)
5. Vibration or involuntary movements
6. Slow movements (athetosis)
7. The delay in reaching motor skills
8. Prefer to use one side of the body, such as dragging his feet when crawling
9. Difficulty walking, such as walking or running style squat
10. difficulty swallowing
11. Difficulty sucking or eating
12. Delays in the development of speech or trouble speaking
13. Difficulty with precise motions

Treatment of cerebral palsy

Children and adults with cerebral palsy will require some degree of long-term care with the medical care team. Drugs that can reduce muscle tension can be used to improve functional ability, treat pain and manage complications associated with spasticity. Drug selection depends on whether the problem only affects certain muscles (isolated) or the whole body (general).

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DISEASE MELIOIDOSIS

Melioidosis (also called Whitmore disease or Nightcliff gardener's disease) is an infectious disease caused by Gram-negative bacterium, Burkholderia pseudomallei, found in soil and water. It is of public health importance in endemic areas, particularly in Thailand and northern Australia. It exists in acute and chronic forms. Symptoms may include pain in the chest, bones, or joints; cough skin infections, the nodes of the lung, and pneumonia.

Most likely you have never suffered from or know what the disease melioidosis? Because apart from rare cases, counseling or publication was not much. In fact, the disease is not less dangerous than other diseases caused by germs. So also with the proposed research is still not getting adequate servings from the authorities because they still lost by disease studies are considered more urgent.

Melioidosis disease itself is a kind of infectious disease caused by the bacteria Burkholderia pseudomallei. The disease usually is often equated with the glander infectious disease of horses that can be fatal if not dealt with quickly.

Glander own illness and dangerous distinction begins with an abscess in the mucous membrane that then become ulcers inside. The disease is also dangerous when it attacks the human lymphatic system. However, one thing that must be noted, is different from disease-causing melioidosis own. The disease melioidosis is endemic in tropical countries such as Southeast Asia. In fact, we were lucky country has not reported anyone affected by this disease.

Many reported that melioidosis is often the case in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and our neighboring countries. Meanwhile, outside of Southeast Asia, the countries whose citizens had ever contract the disease include northern Australia, India, Africa, and some countries in the Middle East. Interestingly, it turns out disease bacteria can be used as biological weapons or terrorist activities. From there, start a lot of research happenings held bacterium that causes the disease melioidosis.

The disease is usually transmitted by infected animals Burkholderia some of these pseumdomallei like pigs, rabbits, dogs, sheep, horses, sheep, and cat. So, you must be careful when interacting or cleaning up the animals, especially pets. Usually, people will be infected with the direct contact between human skin with soil or water contaminated with the bacteria. Germs are usually derived from animal waste which then contaminate soil and water, particularly in agricultural land which is already commonly used manure.

Or the transmission process itself can occur when humans consume contaminated water or breathing dust so that the bacteria entered the body.

Note also that these germs usually enter the body through skin abrasions or injured, either due to sharp objects or gunshot wounds. Hence, the troops are exposed to injuries and a lot of moves in the forests highly vulnerable to the bacteria that causes the disease melioidosis.

Treatment of melioidosis

The killing of the bacteria that are already entered into the body can be done in such amoxilin antibiotics, penicillin, azlocilin, clavulcanic acid, aztreonam, and others.

Treatment with antibiotics should be done when it was discovered the symptoms as mentioned above. Which is usually the case, people are less responsive to rare disease or never socialized by the government.

In fact, this type of disease is equally requires serious attention, especially for those who frequently interact with the animals who allegedly droppings can cause and transmit the bacterium Burkholderia.

Provision of antibiotic drugs should be performed before your own family members or affected by this disease. You must be willing umbrella before it rains. Keeping yourself before this dangerous disease.

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