Feces collected from 541 milking cows on two dairy farms each in Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida were examined for the presence of Cryptosporidium oocysts. Oocysts were concentrated from 15 g of feces from each cow and DNA was extracted. A two-step nested PCR protocol was used to amplify an 830 base pair fragment of the SSUrRNA gene. PCR-positive...

Cryptosporidium parasites are a major cause of diarrhoea that pose a particular threat to children in developing areas and immunocompromised individuals. Curative therapies and vaccines are lacking, mainly due to lack of a long-term culturing system of this parasite. Here, we show that COLO-680N cells infected with two different Cryptosporidium parvum strains produce sufficient infectious oocys...

Cryptosporidiosis and cyclosporiasis are caused by waterborne coccidian protozoan parasites of the genera Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora, respectively. This study was conducted to detect Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora oocysts from environmental water abstracted by drinking water treatment plants and recreational activities in Sarawak, Malaysia. Water samples (12 each) were collected from Sungai...

The morphological, biological, and molecular characteristics of Cryptosporidium hedgehog genotype are described, and the species name Cryptosporidium erinacei n. sp. is proposed to reflect its specificity for hedgehogs under natural and experimental conditions. Oocysts of C. erinacei are morphologically indistinguishable from Cryptosporidium parvum, measuring 4.5-5.8 μm (mean=4.9 μm) × 4.0-4.8 ...

Cryptosporidium and Giardia species are two of the most prevalent protozoa that cause waterborne diarrheal disease outbreaks worldwide. To better characterize the prevalence of these pathogens, EPA Method 1623 was developed and used to monitor levels of these organisms in US drinking water supplies (12). The method has three main parts; the first is the sample concentration in which at least 10...

Background: Cryptosporidium is a protozoan parasite with worldwide distribution mainly affecting children and HIV infected individuals with low CD4 counts. The infection is self limiting in immunocompetent hosts but can be severe and persist in the immunocompromised and malnourished individuals. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of Cryptosporidium infection in faeces among im...

Although pigs are commonly infected with Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia duodenalis, including potentially zoonotic species or genotypes, little is known about age-related infection levels, seasonal differences and genetic variation in naturally infected pigs raised in organic management systems. Therefore, the current study was conducted to assess seasonal and age-related variations in preval...