Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Cyclospora, and Toxoplasma - Insights into Their Transmission

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Background

Parasites are important food and waterborne pathogens. Their complex life cycles, different routes of transmission, and the long time between infection and symptoms mean that the burden on public health and the relative importance of different routes of transmission are often challenging to assess. Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Cyclospora, and Toxoplasma are of significance because of both the low infectious doses and the robustness and disinfection insensitivity of their transmissive stages. These parasitic protozoa are of concern for water production worldwide and are currently considered as emerging pathogen parasites in the food domain. Documented foodborne outbreaks of intestinal parasites are rare in developed countries, although some foods can be important vehicles of transmission, especially in situations of poor hygiene and endemicity of infection. However, without standardized methods for their detection in food matrices, parasitic foodborne outbreaks remain neglected.

Improving our understanding of environmental transmission routes of these protozoa and (oo)cyst survival is important in assessing and mitigating against disease risk. In addition to being essential for a One Health approach to tackle human and animal infections. Where no specific drug intervention is available, robust, efficient detection, viability and typing methods are required to assess risk and to further epidemiological understanding. Indeed, (i) the need to extract organisms efficiently from a variety of matrices including water, sludge, soil and food; (ii) the need to detect small numbers of organisms consistently and accurately; and (iii) the need to determine the viability, infectivity of the organisms isolated, with respect to public and veterinary health, pose a variety of problems.

The threat to public and veterinary health posed by the presence of transmissive stages in our environment, must be translated into a challenge to develop sensitive detection methods. This Research Topic will focus on (i) both epidemiological and risk assessment approaches to control infection which are dependent upon an assessment of the occurrence and survival of the transmissive stage in the environment and (ii) the interaction between the parasite and the matrices.

We welcome original research, reviews, and mini review on but not limited to the following sub-themes with regards to these protozoan parasites:

• Parasite detection by tracking these protozoa: sources of infection, environmental contamination, and animal reservoirs.
• Classical and novel approaches to isolation and detection to increase method sensitivity.
• Insights into the molecular diversity of these parasites: population-based study to infer patterns of genetic diversity from host shifting.
• Insights into parasites interactions with matrices for developing strategies to block transmission.

Keywords: Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Cyclospora, Toxoplasma, Detection, Transmission

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