Kangaroo Cryptosporidium: Is it a wildlife disease?

Abstract

Cryptosporidium, an apicomplexan protozoan parasite, is a causative agent of enteric disease in a broad range of hosts. The parasite has been identified in greater than 170 vertebrates, including 13 marsupial species. Cryptosporidium is well known to Sydney residents, who were forced to boil their drinking water during the 1998 Sydney water crisis when high levels of Cryptosporidium oocysts (the infective stage) were detected in the drinking water supply. During the crisis it was not ascertained if the oocysts were of a type infectious to humans, however as there was no reported increase in human cryptosporidiosis it appears unlikely that they were. Although there was much speculation the source of oocysts causing the contamination was not identified.