• Question: can you get the parasites you work with? and how dangerous is it?

    Asked by annabel to Claire, Franco, Koi, Linda, Mark on 20 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Franco Falcone

      Franco Falcone answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      @Annabel some scientists work more with parasite-derived materials such as their DNA or proteins rather than the parastes themselves; these materials are not infectious. Others work with living parasites, but there will be lots of precautions taken in the lab (lab coat, gloves, safety goggles, special hoods) and each time you undertake a new task you have to make a risk assessment, that is a written form on which you explain what could happen, what you are going to do to avoid this from happening, and what you would do in case it did happen. So no one will be unprepared if something happens.
      People doing field work can also get infected with parasites. Mark and Claire can certainly tell you more than me about this aspect, as I don’t do much field work myself.

    • Photo: Claire Bourke

      Claire Bourke answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      Hi Annabel,
      yes, I used to work in a laboratory where we kept live parasites called schistosomes that can actively burrow through the skin from infested water. To do my work I had to collect thousands of them and so the liquids I worked with posed a very high risk of infection. As Franco says, there were lots of precautions that we took to reduce the risk of infection, we worked in a separate room to other scientists, always wore lab coats and gloves, transported them in a special sealed box and always kept strong disinfectants to hand to kill them and decontaminate any spillages once we had finished working with them. I also had to go for a special health check every 6 months to make sure I had not infected myself by mistake. One of my jobs was to fill out health and safety forms to educate other scientists in our laboratory on how to handle the parasites safely, inform the local health and safety officer of what methods we were using to reduce the risk. Without these safety measures in place, we would not be allowed to work with parasites that could infect humans.

      I also do fieldwork, which is where I go to areas where parasites live and work with local communities to collect blood samples and monitor their parasite infection levels. When I am doing this work I am also living and working in areas where there is a risk that I could be infected. To reduce this risk I had to have lots of vaccinations to protect me against infection and also took medicines to protect me against being infected with plasmodium parasites that cause malaria.

      Keeping aware of the risks of working with parasites in the laboratory and in the field is the most effective way to minimise them and I am lucky that I have access to all of the different tests and treatments that are available for the kinds of infections I have been exposed to during my work. Unfortunately, some of the communities that I have worked with are not so lucky. The more awareness that can be raised about parasitic infections and the harm that they cause worldwide, and the more we learn about how to treat them better, the more effectively we can protect the communities that are most in danger from them.

    • Photo: Mark Booth

      Mark Booth answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      Hi Annabel

      Parasites, or their eggs (if they are egg-laying) are quite often in blood, urine, faeces. It is not the adult parasites usually but their eggs, and only if the life-cycle of the parasite is a ‘direct’ life cycle meaning the eggs if ingested can cause an infection. In the case of schistosomiasis the parasites are only dangerous once they have passed through the snails.

      The main danger from handling blood products is blood borne viral infections including HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, hence it is important to take great care as Claire points out

    • Photo: Arporn Wangwiwatsin

      Arporn Wangwiwatsin answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      Hi Annabel,

      The parasites I work with (Schistosoma mansoni ..o r blood fluke) can potentially infect human. However, a lot of rules and regulations for health and safety are put in place before I can start working with the parasites. Before I can work with them, I need to get my blood collected, and read lots of document so that I know the risk of working with the parasites and how to disinfect the surface, how to protect myself. It is also depends which stage of the parasites I’m working with. If it’s adult worms, it’s more difficult to get infected compared to the worm that just came out from snails.

      There is risk in the work but also control to reduce risk. So by the point I carry out the work, the risk is being minimise by a lot that – if I follow the rules – it is very unlikely to get infected.

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