Facts Related To The Highly Contagious Scabies Character
Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis is a microscopic parasite mite that causes in humans the condition called scabies. This condition has a very highly contagious character and it can be easily contracted from other infested people or infected objects. Because of this characteristic, scabies is very likely to produce great epidemics in crowded places like hospitals, nursing homes, asylums, schools, kindergartens or orphanages. People who are affected by this condition are recommended by the doctors not to enter this kind of environments for avoiding the spread of this affliction. The mites that cause this condition can also live without a human host for up to a week, so when an infested person is getting a treatment, his or her personal items, clothes, bed linens and towels must be well washed with hot water and soap to avoid re-infection.
Also the people who have had contact with other people infested with scabies should, as a measure of precaution, follow a medical treatment even if they don't show the symptoms of the condition. The mites that produce scabies have an incubation period of 1-2 weeks, period in which the first signs of contamination should show. What people should look for in order to establish the possibility of contamination is rash, itchy sensation and inflammation of the skin.
Scabies is an affliction caused by the parasite microorganisms called mites. Because of their size, they are very hard to find. In addition, all the symptoms of an infestation with these mites appear after a few weeks from infestation, period of time in which they have time to proliferate and start reproducing. The presence of scabies in people can only be confirmed by a thorough physical examination. The difficulty of diagnosing this condition is due to the unspecific symptoms that it shows; symptoms common to other skin disorders too, which can mislead to a wrong diagnosis.
In their tendency to hide, scabies mites infest the areas of the body that are less exposed and the females prefer to lay their eggs in the pubic region, on the buttocks, elbows, armpits, wrists, between the fingers and toes, on the knees or ankles. In the particular cases of young children or old people, the mites may also infest the face, neck, scalp or ears.
Once a human body is contaminated, the female mites start depositing their eggs in burrows under the skin. The allergies shown as a symptom of the infestation are reactions of the body to the toxic substances contained by the eggs and the secretions of the mites. After a period of time, the eggs hatch and larvae are released. The larvae start climbing to the surface of the skin where they become adult mites and reproduce themselves. The larvae and the mites can survive without a host for up to a week so even if they are spotted and washed away from the body they can still survive and find the host again or even a new host.
The symptoms developed by the scabies condition are the allergic reactions of the body to the mites' secretions and eggs. Those symptoms appear after the first week from the infestation as rashes on the skin and develop if untreated into burrows, crusts, pustules, nodules and blisters. If this affliction is left untreated it can worsen the symptoms and lead, as an effect to other bacterial and fungal infections, to more severe skin disorders like impetigo.