A PARASITE-FREE WORLD: ACHIEVABLE OR WISHFUL THINKING

Abstract

Parasitism is defined as the association between two organisms in which one, the parasite, lives temporarily or permanently in or on the other, the host, deriving benefits from it and in the process causing harm to it. Thus, the parasite gains while the host loses. Parasitism, commensalism and mutualism are the three recognized but not clearly distinguishable types of inter-specific associations between organisms. Symbiosis which is sometimes mistaken for any of the three simply or literarily means “living together”. Although some authors restrict the term to relationships wherein both