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Cryptosporidial diarrhoea in South Australia An exploratory case‐control study of risk factors for transmission
Author(s) -
Weinstein Philip,
Macaitis Merridie,
Walker Carolyn,
Cameron Scott
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1993.tb137540.x
Subject(s) - bathing , medicine , transmission (telecommunications) , environmental health , case control study , risk factor , epidemiology , risk assessment , relative risk , demography , confidence interval , pathology , electrical engineering , computer security , sociology , computer science , engineering
Objective To identify risk factors for transmission of cryptosporidlosis in South Australia. Design Case‐control study of 51 cases of laboratory confirmed cryptosporidlosis and 51 age and sex matched controls. Setting Subjects from greater Adelaide, with cases notified by local pathology laboratories to the Communicable Disease Control Unit, South Australian Health Commission, during the summer of 1990/1991. Participants One in 10 cases was selected systematically from 479 laboratory notifications, and permission was obtained from the treating physicians to contact the patients. Subjects nominated age and sex matched controls living in the same area. Methods By means of a structured questionnaire, participants were asked by telephone about exposure to possible risk factors in the two weeks preceding the illness/interview. The risk factors included those most commonly cited in the literature as resulting in zoonotic, waterborne and person‐to‐person infection. The number and percentage of cases and controls exposed was recorded for each risk factor. The probability of having been exposed to selected risk factors was compared between cases and controls by the exact test for matched pairs. Results The proportion of cases and controls exposed was similar for all risk factors except water sources. Controls were more likely to have consumed only rain water than were cases ( P < 0.005). Cases tended more than controls to have consumed only spring water ( P =0.06) or only mains water ( P =0.09). Conclusions The consumption of spring water or mains water contaminated with Cryptosporidial oocysts may be the mode of transmission of cryptosporidlosis in South Australia. The advent of specific methods for detecting Cryptosporidium sp. in water will allow this hypothesis to be tested.