Clinical parasitology

This chapter focuses on clinical parasitology, which is an important sub-discipline of pure parasitology and may be defined as the study of human infections caused by ecto- and endoparasites. During the twenty-first century, parasites have come to contribute to an ever-increasing number of human blood, tissue, and gastrointestinal infections that are often associated with important risk factors. The chapter begins by differentiating between protozoa, nematodes, cestodes, and trematodes. It looks at the diagnosis of gastrointestinal parasitic infections acquired through the gastrointestinal tract, before describing the examination of faeces for ova, cysts, and parasites (OCP). The chapter then examines immunological and molecular techniques, and discusses the treatment of parasitic infections acquired through the gastrointestinal tract.