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Giardia: Parasites
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Giardia is a parasite that infects the intestines of humans and animals. When a person gets sick, the infection is called giardiasis, or 'beaver fever'. Giardiasis is usually a water-borne disease. Giardia is a common cause of diarrhea in B.C. and the world.
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Giardia lambia is a nasty little one-celled parasite that causes diarrhea and abdominal problems in children and adults. It is extremely prevalent in day care centers, church nurseries, or wherever small children congregate. It is safe to assume that any child in daycare or parent of a diaper-age child in daycare is at risk for this infection.
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As a primitive eukaryote, understanding how Giardia performs basic cellular functions will be helpful in elucidating the mechanisms present in all higher eukaryotic cells (3, 4). In comparison, a model organism such as yeast, which many scientists study, is actually a higher eukaryote and provides information about only relatively recent evolutionary developments. Also, the giardial genome is not much more complex than that of yeast, making its complete sequencing a feasible and deserving objective (4). There are ... applied reasons for studying Giardia. Giardia is of significant environmental and medical importance worldwide, being a waterborne pathogen and an important intestinal parasite in humans (5, 6) .
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The Giardia parasite lives in the intestine of infected humans or animals. Millions of germs can be released in a bowel movement from an infected human or animal. Giardia is found in soil, food, water, or surfaces that have been contaminated with the feces from infected humans or animals. You can become infected after accidentally swallowing the parasite; you cannot become infected through contact with blood. Giardia can be spread by:
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Giardia is transmitted between cats by ingesting it or by drinking water that has it in the water. Cats that are infested will begin passing fully developed, adult parasites in their feces. Other cats can easily ingest these. Usually it's not by actually eating the feces, but the cat will step in it and get it on its paws, and then lick the paws while grooming itself. If the cats use the same litterbox, this is very likely as they will be digging around in it.
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Giardia is transmitted through the fecal-oral route, where a person becomes infected by ingesting items contaminated with the Giardia parasite. This can occur via infected food or water, as well as coming into direct contact with Giardia-contaminated items. Giardia can survive in the environment for a very long time due to its protected shell, making it very good at causing waterborne outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease. Outbreaks in day care centers have ... been reported.
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