**Risk Assessment for** *Giardia* **in Environmental Samples**

**Risk Assessment for** *Giardia* **in Environmental Samples**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.70805

Ana Paola Balderrama-Carmona, Gortáres-Moroyoqui Pablo, Morán-Palacio Edgar Felipe, Ulloa-Mercado Ruth Gabriela, Díaz-Tenorio Lourdes Mariana and Leyva-Soto Luis Alonso Gortáres-Moroyoqui Pablo, Morán-Palacio Edgar Felipe, Ulloa-Mercado Ruth Gabriela Díaz-Tenorio Lourdes Mariana and Leyva-Soto Luis Alonso Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Ana Paola Balderrama-Carmona,

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.70805

#### **Abstract**

*Giardia* is a gastrointestinal parasite that causes infections in humans worldwide. In developing countries, giardiasis is an emerging infection because it plays an important role in diarrhea outbreaks linked to water and food consumption affecting the population in general. Giardiasis is referred to as zoonosis because its biological etiological agent is transmitted to humans through animal reservoirs by oral-fecal route. Detection and occurrences of *Giardia* cysts have been documented in water, food, soil, and air. The principal risk factors for developing giardiasis include environmental contamination associated with malnutrition and immunosuppression. The small size of cysts and their environmental resistance together with the small infection dose to produce the disease allow giardia dissemination especially in marginalized populations; however, parasitism is present in all countries and at different economic levels. This zoonotic illness contains several species of *Giardia duodenalis*, infecting mammals and humans with eight serotypes, of which A and B are of public health importance. Quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA) is a methodology used for predicting health risk to establish regulations for permissible *Giardia* risk in water and food. This chapter focuses on worldwide reviews of *Giardia* incidence in environmental samples including giardiasis prevalence, serotypes, risk factors, and finally options for cyst reduction in the environment, emphasizing on QMRA.

**Keywords:** water, air, soil, food, giardiasis

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
