Gastrointestinal infection on the rise

Cyclosporiasis, which causes ‘explosive’ diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, is treatable, curable, says UCI Health expert

IN THE NEWS: This summer, a foodborne parasite is taking hold across the country, with thousands of cases reported.

While experts hunt for the source of the organism, known as cyclosporiasis, UCI Health infectious disease expert Dr. Shruti Gohil spoke with Health about its symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.

The first sign of trouble is watery diarrhea. Other symptoms, include nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, bloating and gas, may vary depending on one’s immune system, age or pregnancy status, Gohil says.

“You might feel better for a little while, and then it’ll relapse. Or you never quite feel better, and you have this chronic diarrhea thing where your body kind of controls it, so it’s not explosive diarrhea anymore and your bloating is kind of gone, but you’re still not feeling quite right for weeks.”

Though cyclosporiasis is usually not fatal, dehydration is a concern, says Gohil, who is the associate medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at UCI Health.

“Dehydration can never be underestimated in its impact on the body and the electrolyte disturbances.”

A stool test specifically for the parasite will confirm its presence, which is then treated with a specialized antibiotic containing sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim.

“It’s a generically available drug — a very old drug we have lots of experience with. So, I would consider [cyclosporiasis] easy to treat.”

Gohil is an associate professor of infectious diseases at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include hospital epidemiology, infection prevention, communicable disease transmission and multidrug-resistant organism infections.

Her research is dedicated to evaluating the epidemiology of infections and designing pragmatic approaches for identifying high risk patients to prevent infections at the earliest opportunity. Her intent is to design innovative clinical decision tools in detecting and preventing multidrug-resistant organism and healthcare-associated infections across care settings.

Gohil led INSPIRE, a series of national studies to assess patient risk for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections and to prompt physicians to limit the use of extended-spectrum antibacterial drugs in real time. She is a member of The Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society of Healthcare Epidemiologists in America.