"parasite" is a correct and usable word in written English.
You can use it to refer to an organism or species that lives in or on another organism and benefits from it without providing any benefit in return. For example: The mosquito is an annoying parasite that feeds off the blood of its hosts.
You get annoyed about things in real life and then the tragic thing is that while you are moaning on the awful injustice and suffering of something, something grimly comic will then strike you about it, like a parasite feeding off the misery of the world.
He even had a parasite named after him: Leishmania (Viannia) lainsoni, discovered in 1987.
"We are seeing a 75% decrease in sickness especially water-borne disease such as parasite infections," says Geovanny Santamaria, from global health group Map Ecuador.
I had to go to MS centres in Glasgow and Bristol, asking people: What did it feel like when you were told you had MS? That was the only time Ive felt like a parasite. The gay sex scene with Linus Roache in Antonia Birds Priest was easier than clinches with actresses, he says (With women, you want subtitles saying: I hope you dont think Im enjoying this).
The infectious disease, caused by a parasite spread by mosquitoes, can lead to severe infection and death if not treated quickly.
But with parasite species becoming resistant to the drugs and insecticides used to treat them, members of the global health community are putting more hope in vaccines as a promising new tool in the fight to control and eventually eradicate the disease.
Like a mutating parasite, tobacco companies respond to public health efforts by exploiting weaknesses and compromising the global response.
Ralph Lainson, who has died aged 88, was a British scientist who studied parasite infections in the Amazon region of Brazil for more than 50 years.
Once eradication is on the cards, it becomes important to identify and treat carriers who may not be showing clinical malaria symptoms, but who carry low levels of the parasite.
"When we came up against a soil parasite we tried every natural remedy, but the parasite is still there," says the manager, Alvaro Garcia, a former physics lecturer.
After decades of intense research aimed at finding a vaccine for the complex malaria parasite, the most advanced vaccine candidate, RTS,S, is now close to being licensed.
