Summertime is a great time to travel, hit the beach or go to the swimming pool, but it's also a time to be on the lookout for Summertime Parasites such as Cryptosporidium.

"Cryptosporidium, or Crypto for short, is a microscopic parasite that is spread through the feces of infected humans or animals or contaminated water," Explains Brian Cathowitz, health communication specialist at CDC waterborne prevention branch. People can get very sick with diarrhea after they swallow infected water or food, or come in contact with infected people or animals. The report we recently released looked at the trends of crypto outbreaks in the past ten years and found a fairly substantial increase in that time frame. Even more interesting is that over finding it, the most common source of this outbreak is chlorinated pools and water playgrounds, so in the summertime, it’s really important that people are aware of this and they take steps to protect themselves."

Hundreds of outbreaks caused by Crypto were reported in the recent release by the CDC.  

The report describes 444 outbreaks reported from 2009 through 2017, resulting in 7,465 people becoming sick, 287 hospitalizations, and one death.

35% of the outbreaks were linked to treated swimming water in places like pools and water playgrounds.
15% were linked to contact with cattle, particularly calves who were still nursing.
13% were linked to contact with infected people in childcare settings.
3% were linked to drinking raw (unpasteurized) milk or apple cider.
Improvements in testing patients for Crypto in recent years might be contributing to increased detection of outbreaks.

"With crypto," added Brian, "one very interesting thing is that it survives in chlorine water up to a week, unlike a lot of other types of bacteria or organisms that are typically killed off by chlorine. Once crypto gets into the pool, it’s going to hang around for a while, so it’s best to keep it out of the pool in the first place, so we’ve asked people who are sick with diarrhea or have been sick with diarrhea or kids are sick with diarrhea to keep out of the pool. Also to be very careful and mindful of not swallowing the water that you are swimming in and that some basic infection strategies like always wash your hands with soap and water when coming into contact with animals or the environment that you’re living in. Additionally, with crypto another sort of common source of outbreaks are child care daycare setting, so we always want people to wash their hands with soap and water when and around a daycare."

The CDC waterborne prevention branch division looks at a variety of waterborne disease pathogens, untreated water like lakes, rivers or saltwater as well you could see E-coli, which is much more common in the summertime from waterborne infection. Things like vibriosis, which is something that we commonly hear in the news as the flesh-eating bacteria, is a bacteria that can get into an open wound from water and cause all sorts of problems. There’s also salmonella that can be transmitted through water, typically those types of pathogen‘s or bacteria are killed off in a chlorinated pool, and that’s why the CDC tends to see a trace back to crypto outbreaks to pools that are treated with chlorine.