Epidemiological study of Cryptosporidium parvum antibodies [corrected] in sera of persons from Germany.

In a seroprevalence study including 495 sera from persons of all age-groups, the presence of anti-Cryptosporidium parvum antibodies was evaluated in an enzyme immunoassay. Despite the fact that C. parvum is only found in approximately 2% of patients with diarrhea in Germany, specific antibodies could be detected in 15.4% of all samples. This figure indicates that a substantial proportion of the German population has been confronted with this parasite and it raises the question of whether C. parvum is a potential health risk to the general population.