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. 2008 Aug;79(2):210-4.

Epidemiology of cryptosporidiosis in North American travelers to Mexico

Parvathy Nair  1 , Jamal A Mohamed, Herbert L DuPont, Jose Flores Figueroa, Lily G Carlin, Zhi-Dong Jiang, Jaime Belkind-Gerson, Francisco G Martinez-Sandoval, Pablo C Okhuysen
Affiliations

Epidemiology of cryptosporidiosis in North American travelers to Mexico

Parvathy Nair et al. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2008 Aug.

Abstract

We studied 1,179 North American travelers who visited Mexico from 2005 to 2007. Travelers' diarrhea (TD) was reported by 521 (44%) participants. Among subjects with TD, 218 cases were examined for cryptosporidiosis by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enzyme-linked immunoassays (ELISA). There were 14 (6%) cases of cryptosporidiosis and 141 cases (64%) of bacterial diarrhea. Compared with bacterial diarrhea, a longer stay in Mexico was a risk factor for cryptosporidiosis. Additionally, Cryptosporidium cases passed greater number of watery stools (P < 0.05), suffered more episodes of diarrhea (P < or = 0.05), and were more likely to experience tenesmus (P < or = 0.05) compared with bacterial causes of TD. ELISA detected seven (3%) cases of Cryptosporidium, whereas PCR identified an additional seven cases (6%). Speciation by 18SrRNA sequencing showed that 13 cases were caused by C. parvum and only 1 case was caused by C. hominis. ELISA showed a sensitivity of 50% and specificity of 100% compared with PCR.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure: The authors report that there are no conflicts of interest related to this work.

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