Macroparasites
Macroparasites
Chapter 6 showed that the defining mathematical distinction between microparasites and macroparasites is that for macroparasites, as a rule, reinfection through the environment is essential to get an increase in individual infectious load and consequent infectious output. This chapter gives a brief introduction to the consequences that this distinction has for formulating epidemic models for macroparasites. For the largest part, it concentrates on the definition and calculation of R₀. Typically, macroparasites are multicellular organisms (e.g., helminths and other worm-like parasites) where definite stages in a life cycle can be distinguished. Several of these stages live outside living hosts. The chapter will focus on two stages—adults living within a host, and larvae (hatched from eggs produced by the adults and shed by the hosts) living in the environment of the host—since many features can already be illustrated in this minimal setting. Larvae are then infective to hosts and uptake can be by, for example, ingestion or skin penetration.
Keywords: microparasites, infection, infectious disease, parasite load, reproduction number, parasite, host, larvae, macroparasites
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