[Prevalence of intestinal parasites in a student population].

OBJECTIVE

We performed a transversal descriptive study to know the prevalence of intestinal parasites of our children's community. A 891 fecal sample analyzed from an equal number of apparently healthy children, whose ages were between 5-14 years old, randomly selected by stratified sampling by years old.

RESULTS

The study included 297 children of which 133 were parasitized. The percentage of parasitization obtained was of 44.78%; no differences with regard to sex. The 16.53% was poly-parasitic. The mean age of the parasitized subjects was 9.3 years old. The species encountered by decreasing frequency were: Giardia lamblia (36.36%), Entamoeba coli (10.43%), Entamoeba hartmanni (2.02%), Endolimax nana (1.34%), Enterobius vermicularis (1.34%), Ascaris lumbricoides (0.67%) and Trichuris trichiura (0.67%).

CONCLUSIONS

The frequency of intestinal parasites is high in school-age children, probably due to the mid-low to low socioeconomic level to which this age-group belongs. The most-found parasite was Giardia lamblia. Significant differences (p <0.001) were only seen between the mean ages of parasitized subjects of Giardia and Entamoeba coli.