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Card of Cryptosporidium infections by humans and animals
BLÁHOVEC, Ondřej
The representatives of the Cryptosporidium genus are one of the causes of gastrointestinal tract diseases in humans and animals. In animals the host may even be a respiratory apparatus. The disease is called cryptosproridiosis. In majority of cases this infection can bypass without any major problems, but in immunosuppressed individuals it can cause serious health problems. Cryptosporidium has a monoxenous development cycle, which basically means that the entire development takes place in a single host. Exogenous stage is represented by oocysts, which are in case of a gastrointestinal disease excreted in faeces. In case of a respiratory disease the oocysts make they way out via respiratory and nasal secretions. This leads to contamination of the environment or water. In general, it is expected that Cryptosporidium isolates, which are present in one class of vertebrates, are not infectious to a non-specific host from other classes. It is also expected that cryptosporidia have low host specificity. But this does not exclude that some kinds have gradually extended its specificity to more species. It is also apparent that cryptosporidium infections are common in animals that inhabit the external environment, so even a human can be endangered by this zoonosis, although the incidence in the Czech Republic is low. The reason for the low numbers may as well be that parasitological examination is not performed very often, so the estimated prevalence in the population is probably much higher. Therefore to reveal the originator of this disease it would be appropriate to perform a parasitological examination in persons who are in contact with animals, this way the cryptosporidium infection would be excluded or proven.
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