The Parasite
Weekly
All you need to know about blood sucking,
disease spreading critters.
infect.
To get into a human it burrows
in through pores in the humans foot.
Now, it is ready to start infecting a
human. The hook worm starts a hike
Ben Perelmuter
to the human’ s lungs. Then they go
up the lungs to the bronchi and
The hookworm is one of the
trachea where the human,
most common animals in the world.
unknowingly,
How common is it? Classification of Hook Worms
swallows the
The hook worm is Kingdom: Animalia
worm. When the
one fourth of the
Phylum:
Nematoda
hookworm is
Class:
Secernentea
earth’s population!
Order:
Srongiloidue
going through
That means there
Family:
Ancylostomotude
the digestive
are more of these
Genus:
Necator
track, it uses it
pinky nail length
Species:
Necator Americanus
sharp teeth to
round worms on
grab on to the wall of their host’s
earth than humans.
small intestine. It sucks the blood and
Since there are so
other body fluids from the human. It
many of them, the
disease they spread is also mates here. This is how they
spend most of
the second most
there life. A Hook
widely spread human
to
disease on earth, only worm can live up
10
years.
second to the
common cold. For this
Disease
week’s feature article
The
the Parasite Weekly
symptoms
of
will teach you about this fascinating
hook worm
creature.
disease can be very bad. The hook
The Life Cycle
worm can infect the blood, lungs
Before the hookworm can
and/or intestine. Some symptoms are
spread its disease, it has to go
pneumonia or asthma like sickness,
through a lot of it’s life. The eggs
iron or protein loss, significant weight
come out in their mother’s host’s
loss, and rashes. These are some of
waste. After three or four weeks and
growing to a decent, Pinky nail, size, the good symptoms. Sometimes, if
you’re really unlucky, the hook worm
it stops eating and finds a human to
Hook Worms: A Parasite
Empire
can cause physical retardation, a fast
heart rate, or even heart failure. But
don’t worry, sometimes you do not
show any symptoms of hook worm
disease, and it can be treated easily.
Child Poetry Contest
Winners
1st place:
Creeping, crawling up your stomach,
Now it’s down your throat,
falling,waiting, for the moment
Readying its teeth,
holding grabbing your intestine,
Yum, yum, human blood.
By Par ah Sighte, age 11, Worcester, MA
Second place:
Hook worm,
so tiny,
so mean,
Hookworm,
sucks blood,
spreads disease,
Hook worm,
Eating you,
its whole life,
Hookworm.
By Blud Suker, age 9, Paris, France
HookWorm Word
find and Secret Message
A
E
E
H
O
L
Y
O
K
K
I
A
D
O
D
L
O
P
B
C
L
N
S
I
R
O
A
E
M
I
W
R
T
O
S
R
O
R
B
S
BLOOD
DISEASE
FOOT
HOOKWORM
A
S
O
E
A
E
O
L
F
O
T
H
R
S
S
W
A
J
B
L
Y
O
I
K
K
T
U
S
N
Y
S
T
O
O
M
G
I
M
E
O
E
O
O
F
W
E
W
N
T
Y
W
H
A
W
I
T
J
X
E
C
INTESTINE
PARASITE
SICK
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Find all the words and put the extra letters
on the lines to find the secret t message.