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Microsporidiosis is a disease that is caused by small parasites called microsporidia. Microsporidiosis can cause chronic diarrhea, kidney disease, and infection of the sinuses and eyes. Interest in the organism has heightened in the last decade because of their association with the HIV and AIDS. Microsporidia parasites are now recognized as one of the most opportunist pathogens in immunocompromised patients.

Microsporidia can cause a variety of diseases in humans, involving multiple organ systems, such as intestinal, ocular, sinus, pulmonary, and muscular and renal diseases, in both immunocompetent as well as immunocompromised patients. Microsporidia infection includes being asymptomatic (no symptoms) to having diarrhea, bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinusitis.

In the intestinal or biliary tract, common symptoms include chronic diarrhea (often loose, watery and nonbloody), weight loss or wasting, abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting.

Disseminated infection is characterized by symptoms of cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder), renal failure, respiratory infection, headache, nasal congestion, ocular pain and sinus involvement.

Respitory infection may cause cough, dyspnea (labored breathing) and wheezing.

With ocular infection, symptoms range from foreign body sensations, eye pain, light sensitivity, redness, excessive tearing or blurred vision.

Muscular infections cause general muscle weakness and pain.

Finally, infections of the brain or other nervous tissue cause seizures, headache and other symptoms depending the precise area of infection.

The first well documented case of microsporidian infection in humans was reported in 1959, when a Japanese boy exposed to farm animals presented a headache, convulsions, and recurrent fever. Examination of the cerebrospinal fluid revealed organisms identified as microsporidia, genus Encephalitozoon.

The history of microsporidia started in 1857 with the description of Nosema bombycis, the famous agent of the pepper-spot disease in the larvae of the silk moth. The microsporidia were interpreted as a group of fungi. However, this classification was never accepted, and up to now microsporidia have been treated as protozoa.

To date, more than 1,200 species belonging to 143 genera have been acknowledged as parasites infecting a wide range of vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. All major groups of animals host microsporidia. They are especially common and important parasites of insects, crustaceans and fish. Approximately 10 per cent of the species parasitize vertebrates.

Microsporidia, are characterized by the production of resistant spores that vary in size, depending on the species. Spores of most species are oval or pyriform, but rod-shaped or spherical spores are not unusual, and a few genera produce spores of unique shape for the genus. The infective form of microsporidia is the spore and it can survive for a long time in the environment, up to 4 months. The spores possess a unique organelle, the polar tubule or polar filament, which is coiled inside the spore. In the gut of the specific host, the spore is activated and the polar filament functions as a hypodermic needle and penetrates the cells. When the spores replicate and completely fill the host cell cytoplasm, the cell membrane is damaged and releases the spores to the surroundings. These free mature spores can infect new cells thus continuing the cycle.

Many species of microsporidia appear to be host specific. They influence their hosts in various ways and there are microsporidia capable of affecting all organs and tissues. Some species are lethal, and a few are used in biological control of insect pests. Parasitic castration, gigantism, change of host sex can be effects of microsporidian parasitism. In the most advanced cases of parasitism the microsporidium rules the host cell completely and controls its metabolism and reproduction.

There are at least 14 microsporidian species that have been identified as human pathogens: Brachiola algerae, B. connori, B. vesicularum, Encephalitozoon cuniculi, E. hellem, E. intestinalis, Enterocytozoon bieneusi , Microsporidium ceylonensis, M. africanum, Nosema ocularum, Pleistophora sp., Trachipleistophora hominis, T. anthropophthera, Vittaforma corneae.

E. cuniculi should be included in the expanding spectrum of potentially life-threatening opportunistic pathogens that infect the brain. Detection of the parasite in cerebrospinal fluid may be difficult, since the number of spores may be low. Based on recent data it is now known that some domestic and wild animals may be naturally infected with the following microsporidian species: E. cuniculi, E. intestinalis, E. bieneusi. Birds, especially parrots (parakeets, love birds, budgies) are naturally infected with E. hellem.

Cases of microsporidiosis have been reported in developed as well as in developing countries, including: Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Zambia.

Microsporidia invades individuals via ingestion or inhalation, from contact with feces and urine of infected individuals. Microsporidiosis is predisposed to spread via waterborne transmission. The levels of Microsporidia spores found in raw sewage are comparable to that of Cryptosporidium and Giardia.

Waterborne infections are a leading cause of human morbidity and mortality worldwide, but over 50% of these infections are caused by unknown agents. The reservoirs of these waterborne pathogens can be animals, humans, or the environment itself, and such agents can cause a variety of diseases, including giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, typhoid fever, and hepatitis.

Prevention

Always wash your hands vigorously with soap and water any time you might have touched human or animal feces, changed diapers, or gardened. Always wash your hands before eating. Know the source of your water: (a) do not drink or swallow water directly from rivers, lakes, streams, pools, or spas, (b) if you travel outside the United States you may want to avoid drinking water that has not been boiled or filtered for Microsporidia.

Diagnosis

Diagnostic methods to detect infection with Microsporidia include:

Light microscopic examination

Transmission electron microscopy

Immunofluorescence assays

Enzyme Immunoasorbent Assays

The in vitro cultivation of several microsporidian species that infect humans has been of enormous benefit, both for our understanding of the biologic aspects of the host-parasite relationship and for diagnosis.

In vitro cultures have also been used to assess the effects of antimicrobial agents on several microsporidian species. However, their use in routine clinical diagnosis is not practical because they are time consuming and laborious and only specialized laboratories maintain cell cultures with microsporidia.

The mode of transmission and environmental occurrence of microsporidia has not been clear due to lack of sensitive and specific screening methods. Other members of the Microspora have been detected in water and have been shown to cross-react with antibodies developed against the human pathogens.

Treatment

Treatment with albendazole is most common for all species and is coupled with topical Fumagillin for ocular infections. However, most drug treatments will not fully eradicate the parasites. New, more effective drugs for microsporidiosis are still being discovered and tested.

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I have given you a little background of the site and now I want to get to the best part of being a member of Cashcrate, which is the earning potential. You can really make some decent money with Cashcrate. You can make anywhere from 50-100 dollars a month just by doing the offers and surveys. Their offers approve quite nicely and payout good too. You get one daily survey worth .80 cent. That is 24 dollars a month just by doing one daily survey. The free offers pay anywhere from .10 cent to 10.00 dollars each. You can make even more by doing the free trial offers that pay even higher. These offers usually require a credit card though. It is not necessary to do any trial offers because you can make quite enough money by doing the free offers alone. You earn points on every dollar you make which you can redeem for gifts like gift cards, PSP, X-Box 360, and other cool prizes.

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So you’ve had it with office politics, working for a bad boss and making someone else rich.

You decide to quit and set up your own business.

Before you do, you need to work out what your time is worth.

Take this typical job in PR as Communications Manager for a major company in a big city.

Here’s the headline of the job in the weekend paper.

Corporate communications role, big office near a major park, full-time staff position with salary of $145k+ super

This is the job description when you first applied.

“Our new communications function plays an important role in the management of internal/external communications, reputation risk and providing expertise in community relations.

Reporting to the General Manager, Business Development, your responsibilities will include coordinating internal and external communications initiatives, including publications and the intranet; media relations, assisting in the implementation of external stakeholders strategies; providing counsel to projects in the management of community engagement; preparing speeches and presentations on behalf of senior management; and maintaining an emergency and crisis communications management plan.

Essential skills and experience require ideal candidates to have proven experience in delivering enhancements to internal and external communication. Minimum 5 years experience in external stakeholders relations is essential as is oustanding written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills.”

So let’s take this fictional role and compare it with what you would need to earn if you ran your own PR business.

One of the speakers I most admire, Matt Church CSP provided the inspiration, insight and permission for the basis of this article.

“Don’t give up your day job, well not unless you value your time correctly,” Matt says.

He says the focus is on how you value your time if you run your own company compared to working for someone else in the job mentioned above.

“What do you need to earn for the year? There are two figures to consider here; Your annual “turnover” from fees and your specific “take home” before tax. As a simple rule of thumb, those of you comparing your income equivalent in a day job should look at an annual turnover at least double your potential professional salary. In most cases it needs to be double plus 25 per cent; the 25 per cent factors in lean running costs,” Matt says.

“You should then divide the grossed up figure by 100 days and you get close to your day rate. As you play with this you can start to get clear on what you need to earn as a benchmark each time you sell what you do.”

Let’s look at an example: Pauline the PR professional!

Pauline can earn $145,000 a year working as the Communications Manager in the above example.

Double her day job equals $290,000 in fees (2 x $145,000)

Lets then add the 25 per cent (25 per cent of turnover) for a lean operation running costs.

She now has a calculated budget turnover of $362,500

Divide this by 100 saleable days a year equals a day rate of $3,625.

Now here is what usually happens according to Matt!

Pauline or any other professional moves out of her day job as advertised above and starts to think all she needs to do is replace her salary. Matt reckons this is “a seriously bad move!!”

“They then divide this by around 220 days a year. That’s a lot of hard work for very little money.”

In Pauline’s case she would have a day rate of approx $650!

Now, I’ve even seen PR jobs advertised as low as $19.50 an hour! Why is this so low compared to a lawyer four years out from law school who earns at least $400 an hour?

I argue an effective corporate communications professional will add more value to a business than a lawyer any day!

“Don’t let anyone tell you that your day rate when compared to an employee is way too high. The on costs and base costs in a business will smash you every time. As an aside, smart doctors share resources to drive down the base costs,” Matt says.

According to Matt, if you don’t value your time correctly 3 things will happen;

1. You will find yourself earning lots and taking home nothing.

2. You will work way too hard and not have any time to develop new business

3. You will constantly think you should go back to a day job!

“In a practice based income business model, take-home is king not turnover! So pay yourself first and don’t sell yourself cheap!”

This is really valuable advice for people wanting to run their own PR, media or management consulting practice.

And how do I know? Well, over the past eight years of running my own business, I’ve been there and done exactly what Matt says you shouldn’t do.

I was so tight for cash flow at one time, I spent the weekends renting my office carpark to football fans just so I could survive.

Fortunately, I’ve learnt and been able to turn my business around through fair and value-based pricing.

And of course that’s the value of having a mentor or coach. Someone who has been there before and can advise on all the pitfalls.

My thanks to Matt Church CSP for his insights and I highly recommend his Thought Leaders website - http://www.australianthoughtleaders.com/

Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries. You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com