By
Niusha Faghih
Arizona Daily Wildcat
After two years of studying the effects of microsporidia around the world, two UA professors are a step closer to discovering how the microscopic parasite in water survives.
Charles Gerba, professor of environmental biology, said microsporidia is a microscopic, waterborne parasite that can be found in drinking and swimming water, and it tends to be resistant to disinfectants and is a single-cell parasite.
"They are more of a concern because they are more resistant to disinfectants," said Gerba. "They are really small and get through filters."
There are 1,000 different species of microsporidia and 16 of those affect humans, Gerba said.
Microsporidia not only affect humans, but also fish, insects and animals.
Ian Pepper, director of the University of Arizona Water Quality Center, said the origin of microsporidia is not known and that methods of detecting microsporidia are difficult.
"How do you come up with a method to detect microsporidia when you don't know what it is," said Pepper.
Microsporidia affects 10 to 15 percent of AIDS patients but can be treated if found, Gerba said.
"We don't have a clear picture outside of AIDS patients," Gerba said.
Travelers are also at high risk for drinking the tiny parasites. When travelers think they just have eaten something they shouldn't have, it's really microsporidia that is affecting them, he said.
"The next time you get ankle-grabbing diarrhea in a toilet, think that you might have drank microsporidia," Gerba said.
Gastroenteritis, which causes diarrhea, is what people get when affected by the microsporidia. This causes dehydration, which in turn leads to death.
"It's a scientific word for saying 'a good case of the shits,'" said Gerba, about the gastroenteritis.
Diarrhea is the main symptom of microsporidia and is the first or second leading cause of death in the world, killing 25,000 people a day, he said.
Microsporidia are very temperature dependent, one species survived 98 days at 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit while another survived six days at 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Microsporidia Project is trying to gather information on microsporidia by examining three areas. The researchers are trying to look for it in water, looking at resistance in disinfectants and developing methods on how to combat it, Gerba said.
The first method they are using is detecting microsporidia in environmental samples, Pepper said.
The Water Quality Center, which is funded by Tucson Water to do research, has been trying to detect a method for disinfection, which should be done in about two months, Pepper said.
The hardest part of researching microsporidia is that it is so small, Pepper said. About the same size as bacteria, the researchers have to use gene sequences in DNA to try to identify what species the microsporidia are.
Gerber and Pepper have found microsporidia in water from Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, California and in the Arizona sewage system.
Arizona water will be tested as soon as methods are better, Pepper said.
Microsporidia are shed through the feces, which in turn goes through the sewage system and back into our environment.
Water utilities do not routinely look for organisms in water because there has to be research before monitoring anything, Pepper said.
