User:Wookjoong/Echinostoma hortense

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Echinostoma hortense is an intestinal fluke of the class Trematoda, which has been found to infect humans in East Asian countries such as Korea, China, and Japan. This parasite resides in the intestines of birds, rats and other mammals such as humans. While human infections are very rare in other regions of the world, East Asian countries have reported human infections up to ~24% of the population in some endemic sub-regions. E. hortense infections are zoonotic infections, which occurs from eating raw or undercooked freshwater fish. The primary disease associated with an E. hortense infection is called echinostomiasis, which is a general name given to diseases caused by Trematodes of the genus Echinostoma.

Life Cycle

The eggs of E. hortense are passed in the feces of the definitive host. Eggs that have reached water will mature within 6~15 days. Once hatched, the short-lived miracidia seek out and infect freshwater snails such as Lynnaea pervia and Radix auricularia coreana. Inside the snail, mother sporocysts develop from the germinal cells of the miracidia and usually migrate to a site such as the heart. The mother sporocysts reproduce asexually to generate many mother rediae. The mother rediae migrates to the digestive glands of the snail where it produces many daughter rediae. For the duration of the snail's life the daughter rediae generate cercariae after feeding on the snail's gonads. In the water, the cercariae seek out and penetrate the body surface or orifice of a second intermediate host, which is usually a fish, leech, tadpole, or another snail. Once inside the second intermediate host, the cercariae encyst into metacercariae and remain dormant for many months until the second intermediate host is eaten by a definitive host. Inside the definitive host, the metacercariae attach to the walls of the small intestine and mature into adults.