The use of commercial products for the detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts throughout the food chain

Abstract

Cryptosporidium parvum is an obligate parasite that has been shown to infect a range of mammalian species including humans, cattle, deer and mice. This parasite infects the gastro-intestinal tract producing watery diarrhoea containing parasitic eggs called oocysts. These shed oocysts are the environmental form of the parasites life cycle. The oocysts are readily found surviving for long periods in shed faeces, sewage sludge applied to land, wastewater, and surface water. This means that the processing of surface water to produce potable water for human consumption has to be stringent and closely monitored for breakthrough of viable Cryptosporidium oocysts. This potential for infecting the public was emphasised by a number of high profile water-borne outbreaks. The largest outbreak occurred in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA where over 400,000 residents were exposed to this parasite.

Due to these outbreaks and general rise in the numbers of cases being reported each year there has been a great deal of activity in the commercial sector to develop suitable detection systems to isolate, purify, detect and enumerate Cryptosporidium oocysts from key samples in the food chain.

These key samples include:
Potable water
Veterinary & Human faecal samples
Food ingredients & Food samples

Of these samples Potable water and faecal samples have been targeted for detection product development as these represent the largest markets for testing at present. This paper aims to describe the types of detection systems that have been developed, primarily for Potable water and faecal samples, to improve and enhance the methods for detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts in this wide range of sample types.

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Identifiers

ORCID for S.A. Wilks: orcid.org/0000-0002-4134-9415

ORCID for C.W. Keevil: orcid.org/0000-0003-1917-7706

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