Many foreigners enter Taiwan for the purpose of marriage or study, or as dependants or relatives of Taiwanese citizens. The aim of this study was to investigate the proportions of these immigrants infected with intestinal parasites. A total of 2875 foreigners from 39 countries or regions underwent stool examination in our hospital within the study period, and the merthiolate iodine formaldehyde...

Giardia duodenalis is globally recognized as an important zoonotic intestinal protozoan parasite. So far, eight assemblages of G. duodenalis (A-H) have been identified. Substantial evidence suggests the zoonotic potential of assemblages A, B, and E in livestock. In this study, the genotype of Giardia duodenalis isolates was genetically identified by determining the sequence of ssu-rRNA gene and...

BACKGROUND Parasitic infections have been shown to have deleterious effects on host nutritional status. In addition, although helmintic infection can modulate the host inflammatory response directed against the parasite, a causal association between helminths and allergy remains uncertain. The present study was therefore designed to evaluate the relationship between nutritional status, parasite...

Cryptosporidium spp. cause diarrheal disease worldwide. Innate immune responses mediating resistance to this parasite are not completely understood. To determine whether MyD88-dependent pathways play a role in resistance to Cryptosporidium parvum, we compared the course of infection in MyD88(-/-) mice to that in their wild-type (WT) littermate controls. Three- to 4-week-old mice were infected w...