Giardiasis

Lynne Shore Garcia, UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA

Published online: May 2001

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0001952

Giardiasis is an intestinal parasitic infection caused by the protozoan flagellate Giardia lamblia. The parasite is transmitted from one host to another via the infective cyst form, often through contaminated food, water or person-to-person transmission by the faecal–oral route.

Keywords: giardia lamblia; protozoa; flagellate; intestine; waterborne

Figure 1. Giardia lamblia: (a) trophozoite, (b) cysts.
Figure 2. Life cycle of Giardia lamblia. Adapted from Garcia and Bruckner (1997).
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 References
    Aldeen WE, Carroll K, Robison A, Morrison M and Hale D (1998) Comparison of nine commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for the detection of Giardia lamblia in fecal specimens. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 36: 1338–1340.
    Chen N, Upcroft JA and Upcroft P (1995) A Giardia duodenalis gene encoding a protein with multiple repeats of a toxin homologue. Parasitology 111: 423–431.
    book Craun GF (1990) "Waterborne giardiasis". In: Meyer EA (ed.) Giardiasis. Human Parasitic Diseases, vol. 3, pp. 267–295. New York: Elsevier.
    book Garcia LS (1999) Practical Guide to Diagnostic Parasitology. Washington, DC: ASM Press.
    book Garcia LS and Bruckner DA (1997) Diagnostic Medical Parasitology, 3rd edn. Washington, DC: ASM Press.
    Garcia LS and Shimizu RY (1997) Evalution of nine immunoassay kits (enzyme immunoassay and direct fluorescence) for detection of Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium parvum in human fecal specimens. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 35: 1526–1529.
    book Healy GR (1990) "Giardiasis in perspective: the evidence of animals as a source of human Giardia infections". In: Meyer EA (ed.) Giardiasis. Human Parasitic Diseases, vol. 3, pp. 305–315. New York: Elsevier.
    book Jarroll EL and Landmark DG (1990) "Giardia metabolism". In: Meyer EA (ed.) Giardiasis. Human Parasitic Diseases, vol. 3, pp. 61–77. New York: Elsevier.
    book Meyer EA (ed.) (1990) "Taxonomy and nomenclature". In: Giardiasis. Human Parasitic Diseases, vol. 3, pp. 51–61. New York: Elsevier.
    Nash TE (1997) Antigenic variation in Giardia lamblia and the host's immune system. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B – Biological Sciences 352: 1369–1375.
    Soliman MM, Taghi-Kilani R, Abou-Shady AFA et al. (1998) Comparison of serum antibody responses to Giardia lamblia of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 58: 232–239.
    Upcroft JA, Boreham PFL, Campbell RW, Shepherd RW and Upcroft P (1995) Biological and genetic analysis of a longitudinal collection of Giardia samples derived from humans. Acta Tropica 60: 35–46.
 Further Reading
    book Garcia LS (1998) "Giardiasis". In: Cox EG, Kreier JP and Wakelin D (eds) Topley & Wilson's Microbiology and Microbial Infections, vol. 5: Parasitology, pp. 193–202. London: Arnold.
    book Garcia LS (1998) "Parasitology". In: Forbes BA, Sahm DF and Weissfeld AS (eds) Bailey and Scott's Diagnostic Microbiology, 10th edn, pp. 784–869. St Louis, MO: Mosby.
    book Meyer EA (ed.) (1990) Giardiasis. Human Parasitic Diseases, vol 3. New York: Elsevier.
    book Markell EK, John DT and Krotoski WA (1998) Medical Parasitology, 8th edn. Philadelphia, PA: WB Saunders.

Related Sub-Topics:

Medical Microbiology | Protozoa
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Article Title: Giardiasis
 
How to Cite close
Garcia, Lynne Shore(May 2001) Giardiasis. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0001952]