The intestinal protozoan Giardia was first described over 300 years ago in 1681 by Leeuwenhoek, from his own stools. In his description of Giardia, he noted the size, movement, and morphology of the organism, and associated its presence with the diarrheic nature of his stools and his dietary habits. This truly remarkable account contains the first description of Giardia in morphologic, pathogenic, and epidemiologic terms. Our knowledge of the organisms in the genus Giardia has advanced tremendously in the past two decades. With the advent of new tech nologies, including techniques in electron microscopy, biochemistry, immunochemistry, tissue culture, and physiology, a tidal wave of information has appeared on the organization and function of this parasitic protozoan and its interaction with its host. The purpose of this book is to celebrate the tricentennial discovery of Giardia by Leeuwenhoek by presenting the above-mentioned advances in our knowledge of Giardia and giardiasis. In the first section of this book, the dominant theme is the biology of the organism and the correlation of structure-function relationships.

Malaria causes hundreds of thousands of human deaths every year, and the World Health Assembly has made it a priority. To help eliminate this disease, there is a pressing need for the development and implementation of new strategies to improve the prevention and treatment, due in part to antimalarial drug resistances. This chapter focuses on two strategies to inactivate the malaria parasite in blood, which are photodynamic therapy (PDT) and inhibition of hemozoin formation. The PDT strategy permits either a control of the proliferation of mosquito larvae to develop some photolarvicides for the prevention or a photoinactivation of the malaria parasite in red blood cells (RBCs) to minimize infection transmission by transfusion. The inhibition of hemozoin formation strategy is used for the development of new antimalarial drug by understanding its formation mechanism.

Surveillance for waterborne disease and outbreaks associated with drinking water and water not intended for drinking-- United States, 2005-2006: "Problem/Condition: Since 1971, CDC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists have maintained a collaborative Waterborne Disease and Outbreak Surveillance System (WBDOSS) for collecting and reporting data related to occurrences and causes of waterborne-disease outbreaks (WBDOs) and cases of waterborne disease. This surveillance system is the primary source of data concerning the scope and effects of waterborne disease in the United States. Reporting Period: Data presented summarize 28 WBDOs that occurred during January 2005-December 2006 and four previously unreported WBDOs that occurred during 1979-2002. Description of System: The surveillance system includes data on WBDOs associated with recreational water, drinking water, water not intended for drinking (WNID) (excluding recreational water), and water use of unknown intent. Public health departments in the states, territories, localities, and Freely Associated States (FAS) (i.e., the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau, formerly parts of the U.S.-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands) are primarily responsible for detecting and investigating WBDOs and voluntarily reporting them to CDC by a standard form. Only cases and outbreaks associated with drinking water, WNID (excluding recreational water), and water of unknown intent (WUI) are summarized in this report. Cases and outbreaks associated with recreational water are reported in a separate Surveillance Summary."--Page 39

Giardia is a relatively simple eukaryotic microbe, causing acute and chronic diarrhea which has been used as a model to understand complex biological processes occurring in eukaryotic cells. Further, due to its parasitic lifestyle, Giardia is an excellent system for the study of the mechanisms of adaptation and cell differentiation from the perspectives of molecular and cell biology. This book presents a comprehensive review of the current state of knowledge regarding all aspects of Giardia’s biology, including epidemiology, cell and molecular biology, genetics, pathogenesis, diagnostics, and clinical treatment. It was written by internationally renowned authors, the leading researchers in the field including several chapters with techniques and resources available for the study of this microorganism. Questions that need to be addressed to fully understand the molecular mechanisms of the parasite as well as the cause of its pathology are presented. Furthermore, Giardia’s biology is compared with that of other parasites in relation to their complexity. This volume is an indispensable resource for researchers working with this parasite. It is a “must” for libraries and the bookshelves of everyone interested in the biology of parasites and early-branching eukaryotes.

Since the dawn of medical science, people have recognized connections between a change in the weather and the appearance of epidemic disease. With today's technology, some hope that it will be possible to build models for predicting the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases based on climate and weather forecasts. However, separating the effects of climate from other effects presents a tremendous scientific challenge. Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" And perhaps the most important question of all: Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world? Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages. The book also examines the potential for using climate forecasts and ecological observations to help predict infectious disease outbreaks, identifies the necessary components for an epidemic early warning system, and reviews lessons learned from the use of climate forecasts in other realms of human activity.