RESUMO
A study is made of the socioeconomic conditions, environmental sanitation, and hygienic habits in the members of a rural community in Havana province. This was compared with the results of a stool culture analysis made to all inhabitants of this locality in order to determine the degree of infestation by intestinal parasites. It was found that sanitation conditions are good, which explains the low prevalence of helminths. The greatest proportion of parasitized people show inappropriate habits of personal hygiene, which explains that most of them are due to protozoa.
Assuntos
Higiene , Doenças Parasitárias/epidemiologia , Saneamento , Adolescente , Adulto , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Cuba/epidemiologia , Feminino , Hábitos , Humanos , Lactente , Recém-Nascido , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , População Rural , Engenharia Sanitária , Fatores SocioeconômicosRESUMO
During the period from May to September 1987 stools from 200 children (aged 2 months to 4 years) with diarrhoea at Children's Hospital in Havana City were tested for enteropathogens. Three stool samples collected from each patient on alternative days were examined for Cryptosporidium oocysts by direct wet mounts, concentration by the method of Ritchie (formol-ether sedimentation) and by modified Ziehl-Neelsen staining technique. Total prevalence of intestinal parasitoses was as high as 24.5%. Cryptosporidium infection was found in 8% (16 children). Cryptosporidium was the second most commonly detected enteric pathogen overall after Lamblia intestinalis (identified in 10%). In the overwhelming majority of patients Cryptosporidium was the only detectable pathogen (13 cases of monoinfection). In the youngest children Cryptosporidium was the commonest parasite. It is noteworthy that all children who excreted the Cryptosporidium oocysts were exclusively bottle-fed.