RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Frequency of the Intestinal Parasites Giardia Lamblia and Entamoeba Histolytica in Pediatric Diarrhea Specimens from Central Iran
Elnaz Abbasi1, Alireza Amouzandeh-Nobaveh1, Ehsanollah Ghaznavi-Rad1, 2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 14
First Page: 53
Last Page: 56
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-14-53
DOI: 10.2174/1874285802014010053
Article History:
Received Date: 25/11/2019Revision Received Date: 16/01/2020
Acceptance Date: 17/01/2020
Electronic publication date: 13/03/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
Intestinal parasitic infections, particularly those caused by Giardia lamblia, are among the major health problems that exist worldwide, especially in developing countries. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of the intestinal parasites Giardia lamblia and Entamoeba histolytica that were isolated from samples of infectious diarrhea in pediatric patients from Central Iran.
Methods:
This descriptive cross-sectional study included 230 samples of infectious diarrhea that were collected from May 2015 to February 2016. Direct observation, the formalin-ether sedimentation method and the technique using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) of β-giardin and EH primers were used for the identification of Giardia lamblia and Entamoeba histolytica.
Results:
Out of 230 samples of infectious diarrhea, five cases (2.1%) of Giardia lamblia and no cases (0%) of Entamoeba histolytica were identified using the formalin-ether sedimentation method and the same result were obtained using PCR technique. Of the five patients who had Giardia lamblia, three (60%) were male and two (40%) were female. The most common clinical symptoms in these patients were stomach ache and diarrhea (100%) and mucus in the stool (80%).
Conclusion:
Giardia lamblia was introduced as a parasitic agent causing diarrhea from Central Iran. The results indicate that pediatricians and, even more importantly, experts in laboratories should pay special attention to the identification of this parasite to treat the patients as effectively and as quickly as possible.
