Just back from a trip to South America, you now have a severe diarrheal illness. Your symptoms, other than diarrhea, are pain, cramps, some fecal blood, and fever. These are symptoms of many of the gastrointestinal diseases, so that information does not help you or the doctors identify the infectious agent. Your doctor wants to send a fecal sample to the microbiology lab for them to look at it under the light microscope. Based upon this protocol selection, the physician believes that you have ______.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The choice of using a light microscope to examine the fecal sample suggests the physician suspects an infection by a microorganism that can be directly visualized at that scale, such as a protozoan. Amoebiasis, caused by the protozoan Entamoeba histolytica, fits this description and the symptoms described, including fecal blood and severe diarrhea.

Just Back from a Trip to South America, You Now