Accidentally discovering flea bites on their feet, today few people think whether fleas are dangerous for humans at all. It would seem that such a tiny creature, barely reaching a couple of millimeters in length - can it seriously harm with its bite, similar to a needle prick? Therefore, most of those bitten simply rub the red dots with annoyance and soon forget about the event.
Meanwhile, fleas are dangerous to humans, and physicians and parasitologists consider them perhaps the most dangerous ectoparasites in general. Why? Let's figure it out...
On a note
Ectoparasites are parasites that attack and harm a person from the outside, on the skin, hair, in general - they parasitize on the outer shells of the body. In addition to fleas, these include, for example, bed bugs, lice, mites, mosquitoes and flies.
In contrast, endoparasites are parasites that live inside our body - helminths, protozoa, less often - larvae of some insects.
Flea bites, their signs, consequences and body reaction
First of all, fleas are harmful to humans in that their bites cause a sharp response from the body. Of course, one or two bites may turn out to be imperceptible, but with a large number or regular attacks, the body responds to them, and sometimes very violently, namely:
- rashes around bite sites
- swollen lymph nodes
- an allergic reaction up to serious edema and fever.
And this despite the fact that the bites themselves are very itchy, itchy and can hurt. When combing, additional damage to the affected areas is possible, an infection can enter the bloodstream, as a result of which small red dots suppurate, causing local inflammation. In severely neglected conditions, such as vagrants, such pustular inflammation can develop into ulcers and pyoderma.
Flea bites are painful in themselves - these parasites do not produce the enzyme responsible for anesthesia of the victim and disguise of bites at all ages. Therefore, some fleas bite very painfully, which especially affects children who are not allowed to sleep by insects.
With such anxiety and even the development of a phobia, fleas are harmful to humans with irregular encounters with them.
But during life in a heavily flea-infested room, a person is bitten regularly, daily. As practice shows, in this case, in response to constant irritation of the skin at the sites of bites, people often develop neuralgia and even nervous disorders.
Review
“While traveling in Corsica, we stayed for several nights with a hospitable owner of a fishing boat, from whom my husband, in fact, ordered fishing excursions. The place is amazing - overlooking the sea, in an olive grove, an old house, probably from the Victorian era with wooden shutters. Every morning - sea bass and homemade cheese for breakfast. You sit on the veranda, scratch flea bites and understand that life is good. Only now the child suffered there - the fleas bit him especially hard, during the day he could not even fall asleep from them, he had to be taken out to sleep on the street.That’s why we left there three days earlier, and the little ones had bite points only on the day of departure to their historical homeland ... "
Tatyana, Samara
But the troubles described above are only the lesser of the evils that fleas can cause. Fleas are truly dangerous because they carry the most serious human infectious diseases.
Diseases carried by fleas
Fleas are known primarily for being carriers of deadly human diseases:
- plague, including bubonic
- encephalitis
- anthrax
- trypanosomiasis
- tularemia
- typhus and relapsing fever
... as well as many other infections, also extremely unpleasant - listeriosis, fungal diseases, salmonellosis.
Of course, the probability that a random flea will be a carrier of a particular pathogen of a deadly disease is small, but still it is always potentially there. And this is the biggest danger of fleas to humans.
It is interesting
It was fleas, in particular the southern rat flea, that in the Middle Ages became the cause of one of the deadliest pandemics in human history - the pandemic of bubonic plague. Then the disease claimed more than 15 million lives. She first came to the Crimea on Chinese ships - with fleas in the wool of gray rats. And already from the Crimea began its procession across the continent. Today, in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, the bubonic plague pathogen continues to thrive in gopher colonies and jerboa burrows infected with the same rat fleas.
For humans, not only fleas found on rats are dangerous. Due to the fact that these parasites are not particularly picky about the host species, they can attack other animal species.
For example, if a cat catches a rat, fleas from the latter will easily move to a purring pet, and from it to a house where they will bite a person. Therefore, fleas in a cat are dangerous in the same way that fleas are dangerous in rats, dogs or rabbits.
And, finally, fleas are active carriers of helminth eggs (worms), and a huge number of their species. These fleas also pose a danger to humans.
If you accidentally or deliberately crush a flea, and then eat food without washing your hands, you can easily introduce eggs of tapeworms, flukes, roundworms and other worms into the body. Moreover, the probability of infection with helminths when attacked by fleas is orders of magnitude higher than the probability of obtaining pathogens of infectious diseases.
Why are fleas dangerous for children?
For children, fleas are even more dangerous than for adults. Children react more acutely to parasite bites, they are much more likely to experience allergic reactions. At the same time, the allergy itself after mass bites leads to more serious consequences, rashes and swelling, generalized symptoms such as migraine and swollen lymph nodes appear more often.
Fleas are especially dangerous for children who have not yet been vaccinated. They are at risk of contracting some of the infections against which standard vaccines protect.
For pregnant women, fleas are dangerous to the same extent as they are dangerous for other people. But it should be remembered that at first glance, a trifling malaise, up to a banal allergy, can affect the condition of the fetus, especially in the early stages of pregnancy.
Therefore, it is absolutely undesirable for expectant mothers to encounter parasites anywhere.
Fleas in exotic countries: a double danger
Exotic fleas pose an exotic danger to humans. So, widespread in the Caribbean, Vietnam and India sand fleas bite under the nails or just into the skin, stick to the blood vessel and significantly increase in size in a few days.
These are females in whose body eggs ripen. The cavity in which they find themselves with such parasitism becomes inflamed and causes acute pain to a person. Given that they most often infect the legs, their victims may even temporarily lose the ability to walk.
In advanced cases or with mass infection, a person may experience generalized inflammation and develop gangrene.
A small percentage of the population of these areas is becoming disabled precisely because of sand fleas.
What fleas are the most dangerous?
The most dangerous fleas for humans should be considered rat fleas, in particular, the southern rat flea, which is most often the carrier of plague. Bird fleas, which are typical sources of the salmonellosis pathogen, are also dangerous.
In the tropics, sand fleas are more dangerous, which in themselves can lead to disability, and sometimes the ability to move.
Interestingly, the largest fleas that parasitize cattle rarely infect humans and are almost never sources of infectious diseases. Therefore, it should be remembered that the most dangerous fleas are small bloodsuckers that often live right next to us - in basements and burrows of rats and mice. They are the most to be feared.
Interesting video: fleas in basements as dangerous sources of all kinds of infections
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