Chamelea gallina clams collected from the mouths of rivers along the Adriatic Sea (central Italy) were found to harbor Cryptosporidium parvum (genotype 2), which is the lineage involved in zoonotic transmission. The clams were collected from the mouths of rivers near whose banks ruminants are brought to graze. This paper reports the environmental spread of C. parvum in Italy and highlights the fact that genotyping of seaborne Cryptosporidium isolates is a powerful tool with which to investigate the transmission patterns and epidemiology of this microorganism.
Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Università degli Studi di Teramo, Piazza Aldo Moro 45, 64100 Teramo, Italy. traversa@unite.it
