Episode 8: Malaria cheats, Ebola stacked the deck and Influenza counts cards

Today, we're going to look at what happens when pathogens help each other terrorize us dainty meat bags. Today's round up is the terrifying trio of Malaria, Ebola and Influenza. Let's look at what they have in common...

1. Early disease symptoms: 

Fever, malaise, headache and muscle pain - otherwise known as, "waking up one morning with a headache and not wanting to get out of bed." Messrs Malaria, Ebola and Influenza all cause you to feel this way in the early stages of disease while the pathogens (two viral, one parasitic) are still replicating like crazy getting ready to make you infectious.

 

2. Geographical location: 

Mr. Ebola, when he isn't taking plane rides, lives in Western and Central Africa. As far as we know, he doesn't call anywhere else home. Mr. Malaria is a bit more wide spread. You'll run into mosquitoes carrying his progeny all throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. He's an equatorial monster who needs nice warm climates. Then there's Mr. Influenza, he lives just about anywhere and he's not picky about hosts either- pigs, birds, humans, it's all the same to Influenza.

 

3. Disease incubation time: 

This is where they start to distinguish themselves. Mr. Influenza doesn't really screw around at the casino. He goes right to the poker tables and starts making his money. The incubation time for this little fellow is only 24 to 48 hours. But he'll make you feel crappy for weeks afterwards as he's ravaged your body and stolen away with a whole lot of your savings accounts- at least the currency that cells deal in: protein.

Then next up is Mr. Ebola, whose incubation period is anywhere from 2 days to 21 days depending on your current state of health. He's an insidious little thing, going around your body, slipping his RNA into cells in preparation for the master heist with the same skill any old brigand in a Western movie would slip some aces in the deck.

Mr. Malaria takes his time,using 8-25 days before you show signs of having this little freeloader in your body. He not only replaced all the decks, he corrupted the Blackjack dispensing machines as well. It's like an episode straight out of CSI Las Vegas. 

You don't want to play poker with these boys.

4. Advanced symptoms: 

Ok this is when most sane people would go to the hospital, because with all three of these gnarly little criminals, you're vomiting, you're feverish, your muscles and joints are killing you and your head feels like it's about to split like a rotten melon. However, when you're this sick we can start to tell the wee bastards apart. Mr. Malaria and Mr. Influenza both like to cause problems with your lungs: pneumonia in Influenza's case, pulmonary edema and acute respiratory distress in Malaria's case.

Mr. Ebola doesn't really bother with your lungs, although you may be coughing up bloody phlegm as you start to bleed internally. He's more focused on trashing your intestines and such so you'll vomit out his progeny or plant them all over the bed in your diarrhea. And while Mr. Influenza will make your stomach unhappy, he's not making you bleed into your internal cavities. Mr. Malaria is too busy trashing your brain and making you seizure and fall into a coma to worry about infecting poop. However, as Mr. Ebola causes your fever to go over 103F, he's going to cook your brain from the inside out and you still might win a one way ticket to seizure-ville.
 

 
With all these similarities, it's easy to see how the outbreak got out of control in an area of the globe where doctors are scarce, health care is poor and people are destitute.

It's also clear to see how important it is that we quarantine sick people for a reasonable period of time, AND test them using sensitive measures like our bench top PCR Ebola RNA test, our Influenza RapidKits and our Malaria Rapid test which tests for pieces of the parasite. That way, we know who just walked into the casino and what table they're going to.

-Dr. M