Abstract
From October to December 2011, an outbreak of 26 cases of cryptosporidiosis occurred in a day-care centre in Gipuzkoa, Spain. The infection spread from person to person and affected 24 children under two years of age (attack rate: 38%) and two caregivers. Cryptosporidium oocysts were observed in 10 of 15 samples. During 2010, only four cases of cryptosporidium were detected in Gipuzkoa, and 27 overall in Spain.
Highlights
A case was defined as a child or staff of the day-care centre who presented between 1 October and 20 December 2011 with frequent, non-bloody, watery diarrhoea, and/or in whose stool Cryptosporidium oocysts had been isolated
Figure Cases of diarrhoea caused by Cryptosporidium spp. in a day-care centre, Gipuzkoa, Spain, October-December 2011 (n=26)
It is known that the infective dose for Cryptosporidium is relatively low and affected individuals excrete a large number of oocysts* [12]
Summary
Outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in a child day-care centre in Gipuzkoa, Spain, October to December 2011. From October to December 2011, an outbreak of 26 cases of cryptosporidiosis occurred in a day-care centre in Gipuzkoa, Spain. On 24 November 2011, a paediatrician notified the epidemiological surveillance service of Gipuzkoa (Basque Country, northern Spain) of a child with diarrhoea in whose stools oocysts of Cryptosporidium had been isolated, as well as of an unusually large number of children with diarrhoea who attended the same day-care centre as the first child. All were tested for Cryptosporidium because our laboratory has a policy of testing for this microorganism in samples from children under the age of five years. We present the epidemiological, environmental and parasitological research undertaken to study the outbreak and report the measures taken to control it
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