Fungal and protist diseases

• Fungi and protists are eukaryotic organisms that may act as pathogens.
• Fungi

  Single-celled fungi includes yeast and moulds. They have cell walls but no chloroplast . Some may produce toxins that make people ill.
• Protists

  Protists do not form tissues.

  They exist as as a huge variety or unicellular organisms.

  Some protists species are parasites : they benefit at the expense of the host they infect.
• Malaria

  • The symptoms of malaria include recurring fever and death.
  • The pathogens that cause malaria are protists.
  • They are parasites with a life cycle that involves an insect called a mosquito
  • The mosquito is a vector - it carries the pathogen from person to person
  • You can control malaria by using mosquito nets and prevent mosquito breeding
• Life cycle of malaria

  1. Infected mosquito bites a human and injects the protist that causes malaria
  2. It infects the liver cells
  3. It infects red blood cells
  4. Another mosquito becomes infected with the parasite when it takes a blood meal
  5. The mosquito bites a second person and spreads malaria