Blastocystis is the most common nonfungal microeukaryote of the human intestinal tract and comprises numerous subtypes (STs), nine of which have been found in humans (ST1 to ST9). While efforts continue to explore the relationship between human health status and subtypes, no consensus regarding subtyping methodology exists. It has been speculated that differences detected in subtype distributio...

The occurrence of waterborne parasites coupled with water parameters at various processing sites of two drinking water treatment plants (A and B) and seven distribution system (DS) sites in Sarawak, Malaysia were studied. Ten liters of water underwent immunomagnetic separation (IMS) technique to detect the presence of Giardia and Cryptosporidium (oo)cysts. The remaining supernatant was used to ...

Blastocystis hominis is an intestinal protozoan that is emerging as an important cause of diarrhea in the immunosuppressed population. We report two cases of diarrhea caused by this organism in renal transplant recipients. The infection was diagnosed promptly by careful stool examination and treated successfully with metronidazole. These case report highlights the fact that unusual parasites li...

edigraphic.com Blastocystis hominis is a strict anaerobic protozoan that occurs in the intestine of humans and other mammals (Zierdt, 1991). Recently, phylogenetic analyses of ribosomal RNAs place B. hominis within the straminopiles (Silberman et al., 1996). Its pathogenic role in human beings is still disputed by some investigators (Markell and Udkow, 1986; Miller, 1988). The mechanism by whic...

Introduction: Blastocystis hominis is a parasite found in the stools of human as well as in the stools of other animals and recently its pathogenic potential has been increasingly recognized. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a digestive system’s disorder which is featured by change in bowel habits, abdominal pains and other symptoms similar to Blastocystis hominis infection. There is lit...

Blastocystis SSU-rDNA sequence data from 317 captive and free-living non-human primates (NHPs) representing 30 genera of apes, Old and New World (OW and NW) monkeys and prosimians were analysed to investigate subtype (ST) and allele distribution among hosts. Excluding 20 mixed ST infections, 27% of the sequences belonged to ST1, 22% to ST2, 34% to ST3, 1% to ST4, 4% to ST5, 11% to ST8, <1% to S...