ABSTRACT
We report the analysis of 4892 parasitological stool samples coming from outpatients and patients of a nutritional recuperation center of north Santiago. Cryptosporidium parvum was detected in 21 samples (0.4 percent). The protozoan was detected in 6 of 1203 samples from children of less than 2 years old, 3 of 1.727 samples from children between 6 and 15 years, none of 776 samples from healthy adults and 2 of 13 samples from HIV infected patients. Nine of 97 children of less than 2 years old, hospitalized in the nutritional recuperation center, were infected with Cryptosporidium; this frequency was significantly higher than that of outpatients of the same age. Most infections were detected from May to August, a rainy and midly cold period. It is concluded that Cryptosporidium infections are infrequent in healthy outpatients and that its prevalence increased in hospitalized children and HIV infected adults
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Infant , Child, Preschool , Adolescent , Adult , Middle Aged , HIV Infections/complications , Cryptosporidium parvum/isolation & purification , Cryptosporidiosis/epidemiology , Outpatients/statistics & numerical data , Cross-Sectional Studies , Cryptosporidium parvum/pathogenicity , AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections/epidemiology , Feces/parasitology , Parasite Egg Count/methodsABSTRACT
The earth of ornamental plants is one of the main reservoirs of Aspergillus type of fungi in hospital areas. We studied 174 ornamental interior plants from a hospital at Santiago. Samples were obtained from the soil surface and sowed in Sabouraud-glucose agar, adding streptomycin and G-penicillin. After 72 h of culture, at least one strain of Aspergillus was isolated from 140 samples (80.5 percent). The most frequently isolated strain was A fumigatus (129 samples), followed by A miger (75 samples). A fumigatus and A niger were the only isolated strains in 65 and 11 samples respectively. These findings confirm that ornamental plants can be important reservoirs of Aspergillus strains, a potential infectious agent for immunocompromised patients in hospital areas