Microbe Talk Extra: Cryptosporidium
Posted on October 19, 2015 by Benjamin Thompson
This summer, many people living in Lancashire were forced to boil their drinking and cooking water, after an outbreak of a parasite that can cause a nasty bout of stomach cramps and diarrhoea.
This outbreak was caused by the protozoan Cryptosporidium, a water-borne parasite that can cause a potentially life-threatening infection in the very young or the immunocompromised.
To learn more about Cryptosporidium we spoke to Christopher Miller, a PhD student at the University of Kent, who is looking at ways to better culture this poorly-understood parasite.
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