BASICS OF FOOD MICROBIOLOGY

8. Foodborne Parasites
Foodborne parasites
Numerous parasites can be transmitted by food:
I. Many protozoa
II. Flatworms
III. Roundworms.

Many of them can also be transmitted by

1. Water
2. Soil
3. Person-to-person contact

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Foodborne parasites
Animal parasites require for more than one animal hosts to carry out their
life cycles
1. Definitive
in which the adult parasite carries out its sexual cycle
2. Intermediate
the animal where larval or juvenile forms develop

In some cases, both larval and adult stages reside in the same host (e.g.
trichinosis).
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Foodborne parasites
 Do not proliferate in foods
 Cannot grow on culture media
 Presence can be detected
 Directly with microscope following enrichment from food or stool
 Serological methods

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PROTOZOA

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Protozoa
Food- or waterborn protozoan enteric infections:
i. Sporozoids - phylum Apicomplexa
 Toxoplasmosis (Toxoplasma gondii)
 Cryptosporidiosis (Cryptosporidium sp.)
 Cyclosporiasis (Cyclospora cayetanensis)
 Cystoisosporiasis (Cystoisospora belli)
 Sarcocystosis (Sarcocystis sp.).

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Protozoa
Food- or waterborn protozoan enteric infections:
i. Sporozoids - phylum Apicomplexa
ii. Non apicomplexan protozoa
 Flagellate Giardia intestinalis
 Amoeboid Entamoeba histolytica

All but E. histolytica and Cystoisospora belli have a domestic or wild

zoonotic reservoir.
More recently oral transmission for Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of
Chagas disease has been widely detected in Brazil.
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Giardia intestinalis
Giardia intestinalis (syn. G. duodenalis, G. lamblia)
 The causative agent of giardiasis
 Diarrheal disease
 Flagellated protozoon

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Giardia lamblia
Trophozoit
 Eight flagella
 Paired nuclei
 Kite form
Cyst
 Pear shaped
 8–20 μm in length and 5–12 μm
in width
 Four nuclei
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Giardia lamblia
Survives in food and water as cysts.
Inactivation of cysts:
 Boiling
 Normal cooking procedures
 But they are generally resistant
to the levels of chlorine used in
the water treatment systems.

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Giardia lamblia
a. Cysts excyst in the small intestine
with the aid of stomach acidity
and proteases
b. The trophozoites are obtaining
their nutrients by absorption.
c. They reside in the lumen of the
small intestine and do not invade
tissues.
d. Adhesion of Giardia trophozoites
to the intestinal epithelium is via a
specialized disc and is crucial to
initiate colonization as well as to
maintain the infection.
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Amoebiasis
• Entamoeba histolytica.
• Invasive intestinal and
extraintestinal diseases
worldwide.
• Endemic in many poor
communities in all parts of the
world.

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Entamoeba histolytica
 Aerotolerant anaerobe - lacking mitochondria which survives in the
environment in an encysted form.
 Excystation of the ingested cysts occurs in the intestine, than the
parasite encysts in the ileum, and cysts may occur free in the lumen.
 Does not invade individual cells but disrupts the protective mucus layer
with enzymes.
 Adhesion molecules are also important virulence factors of this
parasite.

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Amoebiasis
• A recently separated species,
Entamoeba dispar may develop an
invasive form of amoebiasis, when
trophozoites invade extraintestinal
sites (liver, brain and lungs) through
the bloodstream.

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Amoebiasis
A person with amoebic dysentery
may pass up to fifty million cysts
per day.
 Cysts are not motile
 Motile trophozoites can be
identified in stools as containing
red blood cells ingested by
pseudopodia, while non-
pathogenic amoebas does not.

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Toxoplasmosis
 Caused by Toxoplasma gondii, which is an obligate intracellular
parasite.
 The ingestion of T. gondii oocysts
i. Causes no symptoms in healthy adults, or the infection is self-limiting.
In these cases the organism encysts and becomes latent.
ii. When symptoms occur, they consist of fever with rash, headache,
muscle pain and pain, as well as swelling of the lymph nodes.

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Toxoplasma gondii

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Toxoplasma gondii Following the ingestion of oocysts
• from cat feces (direcly or via contaminated food,
water) or
• infected meet (mainly pork),
Motile sporozoites are released with the help of
digestive enzymes in the intestine.

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 • When freed in the intestines, these forms called
Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites
• They pass through intestinal walls and multiply
rapidly in many other parts of the body, giving
rise to clinical symptoms.
• Later protozoan cell clusters are surrounded by
a protective wall forming a tissue cyst
intracellular in host cells.

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 Toxoplasma gondii

The development of a cyst wall around protozoan cells (called bradyzoites) coincides with
the development of permanent host immunity.
These tissue cysts may persist in the body for the lifetime of an individual, but if (i) the cysts
are mechanically broken or (ii) break down under immunosuppression, protozoan cells are
freed and begin to multiply rapidly bringing on another active infection
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Toxoplasma gondii
• In pregnant mothers with newly contracted
toxoplasmosis, the T. gondii protozoan tachyzoite
cells are able to cross the placenta, and severe
encephalitic disease may also occur among new-
borns.
• Life-threatening toxoplasmosis also results from the
breaking out (recrudescence) of the latent infection
when patients are in immunocompromised state
(e.g. AIDS). The incubation period in adults is 6–10
days while in infants it is congenital.

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Toxoplasma gondii
• The definitive hosts of T. gondii are
cats (domestic and wild).
• Normally the disease is transmitted
from cat to cat, but virtually all
vertebrate animals are susceptible to
the oocysts shed by cats.

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HELMINTHS AND NEMATODES

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Helminths and nematodes
Number of animal parasites amongst the flatworms and roundworms
 Can be transmitted to humans via food and water
 Do not multiply in foods
 Their presence is normally detected by direct microscopic examination
following some form of concentration and staining procedure

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Platyhelminths: Liver Flukes and Tapeworms
The two most important foodborne parasites among the Platyhelminths
(flatworms) are
I. Fasciola hepatica and (Liver Fluke)
II. the genus Taenia. (Tapeworms)
These organisms have complex life cycles which may include quite
unrelated hosts at different stages.

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Liver Flukes
Definitive hosts:
i. humans
ii. sheep
iii. cattle
It is living in the bile duct after
entering and feeding on the liver.

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Liver Flukes
1. Eggs are secreted in the feces
after passing from the bile duct.
2. The eggs hatch in water or wet
pastures, releasing ciliated
miracidia, which
3. Penetrate suitable intermediate
hosts (water snail).

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Liver Flukes
4. Cysts will only develop further if
they are swallowed by an
appropriate definitive host
(usually cattle or sheep) in
which infection can cause
serious economic loss, or
5. More rarely in humans after
eating raw or undercooked
watercress on which the cysts
have become attached.
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Tapeworms
A. Taenia solium associated with pork
B. T. saginata associated with beef
 The larval stages of the beef tapeworm have to develop in cattle and
finally infect humans through the consumption of undercooked beef.
 The mature tapeworm of these species can only develop in the human
intestine.
 The effects may include nausea, abdominal pain, anaemia and a
nervous disorder resembling epilepsy, as well as mechanical irritation of
the gut.
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Trichinellosis
 Maybe the most relevant nematode in the context of foodborne
infections.
 First recognised as a cause of illness in 1860
 Pathogen: Trichinella spiralis
 Trichinellosis in humans is generally acquired via the consumption of
pork products that are raw or poorly cooked.

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Trichinella spiralis
• Lacking a free-living stage
• Directly from host to host
Hosts:
 Wide range of mammals
including
 Pigs and
 Humans

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Trichinella spiralis
• Deliberated larvae than grow and
mature in the lumen of the intestines.
• The female worms can produce several
hundreds of larvae, which
 Burrow through the gut wall,
 Enter the blood stream and
 Reach a variety of specific muscle
tissues (eye, tongue and
diaphragm, sometimes heart) in
which they encyst

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Trichinella spiralis
The second phase of symptoms, include
i. Muscle pain and
ii. Fever,
occurs as the larvae invade and finally
encyst in muscle tissue, which is
accompanied by severe pain and fever.

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Trichinella spiralis
Eating heavily infested meat leads
sometimes to
 death from heart failure.

The larvae grow to about 1 mm in

muscles, then encyst by curling up and
becoming enclosed in a calcified wall
some 6–18 months later.

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

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