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MOLECULAR EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDIES ON TWO CYCLOSPORIASIS OUTBREAKS IN VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Citation:
Piche, R., R. Chen, L. Hoang, B. Dixon, J. H. Cross, H.D A. Lindquist, M. W. Fyfe, S. Champange, J. L. IsaacRenton, AND C. L. Ong. MOLECULAR EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDIES ON TWO CYCLOSPORIASIS OUTBREAKS IN VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA. Presented at Emerging Waterborne Disease Symposium at the International Congress of Parasitology, Vancouver, BC, August 4-9, 2002.
Impact/Purpose:
1) Conduct laboratory evaluations of new methods for detection of protozoan parasites.
2) Determine the infective dose of parasitic protozoa to hosts given a variety of models that will assist in estimating the public health significance at various levels of occurrence.
The work in this task will support CCL2 and 3 and will be completed by 9/05.
Description:
Two cyclosporiasis outbreaks in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC) were investigated using molegular epidemiology. The cause of the 1999 outbreak has not been identiifed whereas the 2001 oubreak has been linked epidemiologically to the consumption of Thai basil. The internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) region was used as the molecular marker. Sequencing of amplified 18S rRNA and ITS1 loci of isolates collected during the 1999 and 2001 outbreaks showed almost complete homology for all 18S rDNA sequences. A higher degree of variation in the ITS1 sequences was observed between isolates collected during different outbreak periods.