Erratum: Medical Parasitology Taxonomy Update 2016–2017(Journal of Clinical Microbiology(2019)57: 2(e01067-18) Doi: 10.1128/JCM.01067-18)

In our article, Neobalantidium was proposed as a revised taxon to accommodate Balantidium coli. Since the publication of the article, we were made aware of the rediscovery of the genus Balantioides, which was described by Alexeieff in 1931 to accommodate B. coli (1). The following is a brief taxonomic history of the organism: Malmsten (1857) described Paramecium coli from two humans with dysentery (2). Balantidium was described by Claparède and Lachmann in 1858 (3), with the frog parasite B. entozoon as its type species. Stein (1863) transferred P. coli to Balantidium (4). Alexeieff (1931) described Balantioides to accommodate B. coli (1). Unfortunately, this name went unnoticed in much of the medical literature for decades. Pomajbíková et al. (2013) described Neobalantidium to accommodate B. coli (5). Chistyakova et al. (2014) brought awareness to Alexeieff’s description of Balantioides (6). Jirků-Pomajbíková and Stensvold (2018) reevaluated Pomajbíková et al.’s earlier (2013) work and acknowledged that Balantioides has priority over Neobalantidium (7). In summary, the proper taxonomic assignment for this agent is Balantioides coli, and the disease should be referred to as balantiosis.