infectious diseases
Cyclosporiasis
Introduction
Cyclosporiasis is infection with the protozoanCyclospora cayetanensis. Symptoms include watery diarrhea with gastrointestinal and systemic symptoms. Diagnosis is by detection of characteristic oocysts in stool or intestinal biopsy specimens. Treatment is withtrimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. (See also Overview of Intestinal Protozoan and Microsporidia Infections .) infection have followed ingestion of contaminated fresh vegetables including basil, snow peas, mesclun lettuce, and cilantro. In the summer of 2013, a multi-state outbreak involving hundreds of people in the US was attributed to ingestion of prewashed salad mixes ( General references ). A 2018 multi-state outbreak was attributed to contaminated fresh vegetable trays ( is similar to that of Cryptosporidiosis , except that oocysts passed in stool are not sporulated. Thus, when freshly passed in stools, the oocysts are not infective, and direct fecal-oral transmission cannot occur. The oocysts require days to weeks in the environment to sporulate and, therefore, direct person-to-person transmission is unlikely. The sporulated oocysts are ingested in contaminated food or water and excyst in the gastrointestinal tract, releasing sporozoites. The sporozoites invade the epithelial cells of the small intestine, replicate, and mature into oocysts, which are shed in stool. 