if parasites which eat flesh were in your body how long would it take to devour you???

Question: if parasites which eat flesh were in your body how long would it take to devour you???
- Keywords:
  human body,
  parasite
Asked by seth100 to Enda, Jean, Kate, Kev, Tim on 13 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by louismichael92.
- Tim Downing answered on 13 Nov 2012:
  
  Hi Seth,
  
  Different parasites have prefer different parts of the body! The ones I study are called Leishmania (pronounced “leash-mane-ee-aa”) and infect white blood cells and are distributed around the body. It gets into your internal organs like your pancreas and even your bone marrow. By spreading throughout your body, it’s harder to get rid of it.
  It eats flesh by breaking through the white blood cell membranes to get inside the cell, and it then divides rapidly inside the cell. Eventually the cell stops working properly and explodes (“lyses”) because the parasites have been using up its resources. All the parasites inside then spread through the blood stream and our drainage (lymphatic) system and infect more cells.
  The parasites are smart though – because they have evolved with humans for a long time, they know that having lots of infected people means they can be spread more quickly. So the infections develop slowly and then get transmitted by sandflies. So how long it takes to devour you could be a long time!
  
  Tim
- Jean Bourke answered on 15 Nov 2012:
  
  @tim I looked that up. That is so disgusting!

Question: if parasites which eat flesh were in your body how long would it take to devour you???