Parasitic and fungal diseases, far from becoming rare, are constantly increasing. This is due to the growth in overseas travel and the increasing number of infectious and iatrogenic immunodepressive conditions (AIDS, organ transplantation, cancers, auto-immune diseases …), and makes diagnostic parasitology and mycology essential in health establishments. Further, increasing life expectancy and therapeutic advances that keep more and more immunodepressed patients in remission (survival of early premature babies, tissue transplantation, immunosuppressant therapy) combine to make diagnostic parasitology and mycology essential in health care establishments. The Parasitology and Mycology laboratory of Montpellier Academic Hospital Centre fulfils the three functions of patient care, teaching and research. Besides diagnosis of patients in the hospital, the expertise of the laboratory is in demand from private pathologists and the laboratories general hospitals of the region.

The medical staff of the laboratory have close links with their clinical colleagues: advice on urgent and routine etiological epidemiological and diagnostic procedures; help with follow-up, taking bedside samples, discussions, bio-clinical staff meetings, round tables, and epidemiological clinical and therapeutic record-keeping

Refinement and evaluation of new techniques benefit from new information and refinements acquired: from exchange with Parasitology and Mycology laboratories of other French university hospitals and various care and research centres in France and abroad – from membership of several French and European multicentre networks, and by partiipating in national and international meetings and congresses organised by learned societies or the pharmaceutical industry.

The Parasitology – Mycology Laboratory of Montpellier University Hospital is divided administratively into two functional units: Parasitology and Mycology. For practical purposes we will consider the following sectors: Mycology and Fungal Immunology, Parasitology, Parasite Immunology, Molecular Parasitology

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The hospital laboratory performs all the parasitological, mycological, immuno-parasitological and immuno-mycological diagnostic tests for the Academic Hospital Centre. It is a reference centre for the diagnosis of toxoplasmosis, and mycoses, and for the identification of Leishmania species. It has ministerial approval for the antenatal diagnosis of toxoplasmosis.

A Tropical and Travel Medicine Consultancy and a Travel Clinic operate half a day weekly (Dr D. Basset)

Bioclinical research is centred on toxoplasmosis and the leishmaniases, but also covers other parasitoses and mycoses.

The hospital laboratory comprises the following sectors :

- Parasitology (Head : Dr D. Basset)

- Parasite immunology (Head : Dr F. Pratlong)

- Mycology (Head : Dr P. Rispail) and fungal immunology (Head : Dr J. Dereure)

- Molecular diagnosis (Head : Dr P. Bastien)

- Biochemical and molecular identification of Leishmania (Heads : Drs F. Pratlong et C. Ravel).