Frecuencia anual de las infecciones por cryptosporidium parvum en pacientes niños y adultos ambulatorios y adultos infectados por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana / Annual frequency of cryptosporidium parvum infection in children and adult outpatients and adults infected by HIV

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