Cryptococosis

The prefect state is called Filobasidiella neoformans Kwon-Chung.  Cryptococcosis, caused by Cryptococcus neoformans, is a systemic fungal  infection. C. neoformans, an encapsulated yeast causes an acute and chronic  pulmonary or mengial fungal disease known as cryptococosis. The credit for  the establishment of genus Cryptococcus goes to Friedrich Traugott Kützing  (1883), German pharmacist and phycologist. The etymology of Cryptococcus  indicate it ismade up of two parts e.g. the “Crypto” is a Greek word “Kryptos”  meaning “hidden” and The “coccus” part means “berry” (spherical shape of  yeast). According to Lin (2009), cryptococcal meningitis alone kills 6,24,000  people in the world annually. The first case of cryptococcosis was reported  in 1941 in Calcutta, India (Reeves et al., 1941). Cryptococcosis is caused by  species of the genus Cryptococcus. There are 37 species and only two species  namely C. gattii and C. neoformans are medically important. Cryptococcus is  Gram positive, non-motile, non-fermenting, basidiomycetous encapsulated  yeast. Cryptococcus produce budded cells known as balstoconidia.