[Taeniasis, amebiasis and other intestinal parasitosis in school age children from Michoacan State, Mexico].

92.3% schoolchildren aged 6-13 years of a mexican rural village, suspected foci of Taenia solium cysticercosis were screened for intestinal parasites with the main purpose to know the infection rate by taeniasis. An stool sample was collected to schoolchildren of the village and 95.4% of a urban private school as comparative group. Laboratory examinations were performed with the most accurate technics, included microscopies with an ocular micrometer. The general parasitation rate was 4 times higher in the rural village, but the percentages of Taenia spp. infection were 0.6% both of them. Entamoeba histolytica was observed 1.8% and 7.2% in the city and rural village, respectively. All the cases with taeniasis passed T. saginata after treatment with niclosamide. Negative results were obtained with the same chemotherapy in a randomly selected group of 112 schoolchildren which previous stool examination was reported negative. Neither taeniasis were demonstrated in 94 adult persons. These data are suggestive of the great variability on the transmission rates of T. solium cysticercosis in endemic areas and illustrate the faced methodological problems to confirm the diagnosis of taeniasis. By other hand support the hypothesis that estimates of infection rates with E. histolytica have been overdiagnosed in the country. Taeniasis-cysticercosis; schoolchildren; Taenia saginata; amebiasis.