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Worms, head lice, scabies – these diseases also happen to young children.
Owsica
Oatworm is the most common helminth in our country. It is characterized by, among others ease of spreading in dense populations. Pinworm is easily transmitted by food and inhalation – contaminated food, dirty hands, house dust. In addition, it is favored by the long time, even up to several weeks, of survival of pinworm eggs. This disease occurs most often in preschool and early school age children, mainly due to the lack of hygienic habits, e.g. sucking dirty fingers. Pinworm infection often occurs outside the home – in kindergarten, school, boarding school – but the disease develops at home, where parasites from an infected person contaminate the environment. Therefore, usually the majority of family members and people from the immediate vicinity suffer from pinworm at the same time.
Pinworm mainly inhabits the ileum, its females live for about 4 weeks, and crawling through the anus they dry up in several minutes on the skin of the perineum. Earlier, however, each of the females lays about 11000 eggs on the skin, most of which hatch within 6 hours. These larvae return back to the colon. More often, however, the eggs from the anus area are transferred to the patient’s mouth or nose. Parasites travel most often in the evening and at night, when the itching is even stronger due to heat. When scratching the itchy area of the anus, parasites contaminate your hands.
In the course of pinworms, the skin around the anus and perineum is often covered with epidermal lesions and eczema lesions. The disease can cause anxiety, teeth grinding, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbances and nail biting. Children usually have poor appetite, dark circles under the eyes and pale faces. Sometimes pinworm inflammation of the appendix or infections of the female reproductive system can occur if parasites enter it through the vagina.
We usually detect pinworm invasion with a rectal swab taken in the morning after waking up for 3 consecutive days. Oatworm is treated with oral antiparasitic agents such as pirantel, mebendazole or albendazole (Zentel). The treatment with each drug should be repeated. Underwear, bedding, clothes should be washed thoroughly, several times and ironed with a hot iron. Hygiene measures and a diet high in fiber and low in carbohydrates are also important. The patient’s entire family should be monitored and treated.
- Check the drug with mebendazole: Vermox (leaflet) – dosage and side effects of the drug
Invasion of an unarmed tapeworm
Due to the habit of consuming raw meat, it is the most common tapeworm in Europe. Contamination of the environment by sewage also contributes to contamination.
The larval forms of this tapeworm develop only in cattle, and the host of adults is humans. Tapeworm uterine members, each containing approx. 100 thousand. eggs each, actively crawl through the anus. In this form, they can contaminate the soil in which they can stay for over a year. This form, however, is only contagious to cattle that transform into blackhead. It is he who, when eaten along with meat, leads to invasions in humans.
Symptoms of tapeworms can vary greatly, but they mostly affect the gastrointestinal tract. These include a reduction in the secretion of digestive enzymes and digestive disorders, epigastric pain, nausea, changes in appetite, weight loss. Additionally, there may be diarrhea or constipation, weakness, and sleep disturbances. Exceptionally, tapeworm disease can cause inflammation of the appendix or bile ducts.
The diagnosis of the disease is based and it is easiest when you can observe the excreted tapeworms in the stool, but it occurs only after approx. 3 months of invasion. The eggs of this worm are found in stool or rectal swabs, usually by accident. A test for the presence of specific tapeworm antigens in the stool can also be performed.
The treatment of tapeworms usually consists of a single administration of praziquantel or niclosamide, and the effectiveness of such therapy is up to 95%. The effectiveness of the therapy is determined by the lack of excretion of tapeworm members for 4 consecutive months.
Scabies
Scabies is an infectious disease caused by tiny human parasites – a type of Sacroptes hominis mite. The characteristic features of this disease are itching and the presence of small pits in the skin, the so-called scabies. The infection with scabies occurs through direct contact with a sick person, infection through objects is less common. Infection with animal scabies is extremely rare, and the course of infestation differs from “classic” scabies. Apart from the human skin, scabies do not live for more than 3-4 days, so you should not use underwear or bedding for at least a week. Patient’s clothes do not have to be specially disinfected, but it is necessary to wash and iron them.
The condition of our body affects the infection and course of scabies. Reduced immunity, cachexia, mental illnesses and severe chronic diseases are factors contributing to the development and severe course of the infection.
At the beginning of the disease, after contact with the parasite, the fertilized female hollows a linear, blind-ended burrow into the epidermis, several millimeters long. For three weeks of its life, it lays about 2-3 eggs every day, from which the larvae hatch. These become adults within 3 weeks, with the possibility of reproduction and further invasion.
Itching is the most common and characteristic symptom of scabies. Under the influence of heat, e.g. in bedding, it intensifies due to the activation of parasites. On the skin of the sick person, in the most characteristic places, you can see the burrows of scabies. Their typical location is: the side surfaces of the fingers, wrists, skin folds, buttocks, and also in men, the genital area, in women around the nipples. In children, it is worth examining the hands and soles, because in this group of patients the changes are often located in these areas. The back and face are usually empty. Due to the fairly large itching on the skin of patients, there are also cuts, numerous scratches, and sometimes secondary excesses with purulent discharge.
Scabies are treated with antiparasitic drugs, most often lindane. The drug should be rubbed into the skin for 3 consecutive days, washed off after 12-24 hours and remember to change underwear every day. The drug should be washed off the skin of children after 2 hours. In addition, preparations containing benzoic acid esters, Wilkinson’s ointment or oral ivermectin are also used.
When treating scabies, it should be remembered that when treating scabies, care and possible therapy should be provided to all people in the patient’s immediate vicinity.
Lice
Head lice occurs most often between 4 and 10 years of age and spreads quickly in clusters, e.g. in kindergartens, also with the help of headgear. Lice are small arthropods, the females of which lay about 200-300 eggs, the so-called nits firmly attached to the hair. Since the eggs are laid close to the skin’s surface, they move away from the skin as the hair grows, and on this basis the duration of the head lice can be estimated. After approx. 2-3 weeks, young individuals hatch from the eggs.
The areas where the most frequent nits aggregate are the occipital, behind-the-ear and temporal areas, with pruritus being the most common symptom. Sometimes, with increased scratching, scabs are formed on the scalp, oozing wounds, even to purulent superinfections. In extreme cases, severely neglected people develop the so-called hair tangle and head lice eczema.
Recognizing an invasion is not difficult. Usually, nits or adults can be found in the scalp without any problems. A common clue is also the presence of lice in the child’s environment.
In addition to head lice, we can also distinguish pubic lice and clothing lice. However, infections with these parasites are almost non-existent in children.
For the treatment of head lice, emulsions, shampoos, gels or powders with 1% gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane, which have recently been replaced with less harmful 1% permethrine cream, are used. The latter is enough to use it once and wash it off after 10 minutes. The previous preparation is left on the scalp for 12-24 hours and this procedure is repeated after about a week.