Talk:Tunga penetrans

Title
"Organizations Helping Deal With Jiggers" seems a very clunky title to me. How about something like "Organizations Combatting Jiggers" or something like that (although I admit my alternative is not great; hopefully someone can come up with something better)? Transitive Sam (talk) 06:11, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks like Kjkolb renamed this section "External links". That works for me! Transitive Sam (talk) 06:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Kingdom Driven Ministries
From my perusal of their website, it looks to me like Kingdom Driven Ministries is, FAR and above anything else, an evangelical missionary organization. Their involvement with anything medical seems to be limited to transporting people to hospitals and visiting them while they are inpatients. Additionally, this seems to be the case regardless of the medical malady and is not specific to jiggers at all. Their Medical Missions page is mostly composed of general information about jiggers; I fear they are using the current newsworthiness of jigger infestation in Africa to generate hits/interest in their generic patient support activities. I therefore suggest Kingdom Driven Ministries be removed from this list. Transitive Sam (talk) 06:11, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and deleted it. Transitive Sam (talk) 06:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Untitled
Surely this page can be combined with tungiasis? --Gak 12:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Introduction from West Indies to Africa
The following statement has been removed from the main article pending adequate referencing. --Gak 07:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC) "According to sources, the flea was introduced into Africa in 1873 by the ship Thomas Mitchell"

Size
The article states that the flea is 1mm in size, but then "increases in size by 2000 to 3000"... I rather doubt that a flea can reach the size of 2 to 3 meters!!!

Anyway, "increases in size by 2000 to 3000" is not correct English. Iron C hris |  (talk) 05:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

"The enlargement was similar in all directions. There was a clear demarcation between parasite and host tissue. The diameter of the halo reached 10 mm. This meant that the flea had increased its volume by a factor of roughly 2,000–3,000." This excerpt about the increase in 'size' is from the original article (http://www.springerlink.com/content/j1wpn7jtlxm6ketj/fulltext.pdf). Increase in size in this case refers to the body volume, the cube of the increase of the body dimensions.

Mirrordor 07:28, 23 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirrordor (talk • contribs)

If the flea increased in diameter from 1mm to 10mm, it increased from a volume of 0.5236 mm3 to 523.6 mm3. That's an increase of 10^3, or 1000. 61.73.157.156 (talk) 04:59, 31 October 2014 (UTC)mommarigo

Jumping ability
Please forgive my ignorance, but the ability to jump 20 cm (8 inches) does not sound so trivial to me. But if the flea attacks mainly the toes of its human victims, as one article says, this suggests that its vertical leap is much less than 20 cm, although its horizontal leap (long jump) may indeed be 20 cm. Could somebody knowledgeable clarify this point?Grisunge (talk) 02:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I also question the statement that Tunga penetrans is a poor jumper, and for this simple reason: it is the smallest flea while their well-known cousins, bigger 'common' flea (1.5 to 3.3 mm long), one of the best jumpers in the animal world can jump only 18 cm high and 33 cm long (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea). So, I spent a couple of hours looking through about a hundred Google search entries for Tunga penetrans and Tungiasis to find the answer for your question. I found one article (http://www.dermato.med.br/publicacoes/artigos/2007Tungiasis-and-Myiasis.pdf) which has a referral to the fact that T. penetrans does jump up to 20cm. I could not find any article which says how long the flea can jump, though. But as the common flea can jump up only to 120 times its length, and T. penetrans can jump up to 200 times its length, T. penetrans should be considered a champion, not a poor jumper!

Many articles I read repeat the statement that T. penetrans infects the toes because it's a poor jumper without any collaborating proof, and I get the impression that one author just copied another's opinion. Considering the fact that most of the infestation occur at the front of the toes, between them, underneath them, and on the sole, I think we can logically explain this by the fact that the victims walk barefoot and the front part of the feet, which are the toes, hits the ground and the fleas first and most often; the fleas also get trapped between the toes, or underneath the toes and the sole when the victims stand still. Many Ugandan children with the infestation drop out of school (http://www.globalissues.org/news/2010/10/21/7340) because tungiasis is painful (they cannot hold pens) and highly stigmatized. And children get tungiasis on their hands not because the fleas can jump that high but because they play in the sand. Other body locations for tungiasis are elbows (when the victims lean on their elbows), buttocks (when they sit on the ground), and in the genital areas (because sand and fleas get trapped there).

Mirrordor 06:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirrordor (talk • contribs)

Infection
Infection is a pathological condition caused by germs (bacteria, viruses). Infestation is the term to be used when the problem is caused by a parasite.

Mirrordor 07:02, 23 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirrordor (talk • contribs)

Treatment
What is the treatment or first aid procedure? Do you remove them? Should there be a section on this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.129.238 (talk) 02:38, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe a section on pesticides that can kill them in the environment, but treatment for people is already covered in the article on "tungiasis". Would you believe that simply putting a layer of Vaseline on the spots will kill them? I think the important part is preventing secondary infections. 61.73.157.156 (talk) 05:06, 31 October 2014 (UTC)mommarigo

pest control - global distribution
I read that the flea is widespread in African countries like Kenya as well as South America in tropical areas -- an area map of the distribution would be nice. I'm just wondering if they could be largely eliminated with nematodes (specific for fleas) or specialized bacteria (toxins) like Bacillus thuringiensis ? I found some info relating nematodes just for fleas but it was very limited

what i found regarding the chigoe was usage of fume distributed - chemical toxins, outside the use of Diatomaceous earth --Ebricca (talk) 18:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Chloe flea
"Chloe flea" redirects here. Is there any reliable source for this? Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2016 (UTC)