CHULA VISTA (KGTV)- San Diego County public health officials are investigating four cases of a highly contagious parasite linked to the swimming pools at the Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center.
The San Diego Public Health Department is investigating four cases of cryptosporidiosis — also known as "crypto" — connected to the resort's pools.
Officials are alerting anyone who swam there between July 24 and Aug. 15 that they may have been exposed.
Health officials say the Cryptosporidium parasite can survive in water even when a pool is properly maintained. The county has not said the pools were improperly maintained.
Brynn Taylor, a family medicine physician with Kaiser Permanente, said the parasite's resilience is what makes it particularly difficult to contain in public pools.
"Even in a very well-maintained public swimming pool, these organisms are resistant to chlorine, so it doesn't kill them. So that means that that is a potential source of spread," Taylor said.
Doctors say cryptosporidiosis is a very common parasitic infection, with about 800,000 cases reported in the U.S. every year. The most common symptom is watery diarrhea, which typically appears within days of exposure.
"The typical symptoms are going to be an acute onset of watery diarrhea. That's usually within about 2 to 10 days from the time of exposure," Taylor said.
Taylor also warned that people can continue spreading the infection even after their symptoms resolve.
"The tricky thing about this is that even if a person no longer has symptoms, they can still be shedding the oocytes of the parasitic infection, and that's where we see the contamination or that's where we see the spread," Taylor said.
Most healthy people recover on their own, but the illness can be more serious for people with weakened immune systems. Some people may have no symptoms at all.
Taylor said standard disinfectants may not be enough to stop the spread of this particular parasite.
"We think about how to reduce our exposure and sometimes we think about things that are on the go like alcohol-based hand sanitizers, but for this parasitic infection, we actually want to think more about washing our hands with good old soap and water, and then instead of disinfecting surfaces with things like bleach, this one, we're a little more successful in eradicating it with a mix of hydrogen peroxide," Taylor said.
I reached out to the Gaylord Pacific Resort for comment and have not heard back.
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