Prevalencia de enfermedades parasitarias y su correlación con la desnutrición en niños en edad escolar de la parroquia San Luis de la ciudad de Riobamba

Abstract

Parasitic infections have been considered a serious health problem in developing countries, which could cause serious malnutrition and subsequently affect the health status of schoolchildren. The main objective of this research was to establish the prevalence of parasitic diseases and their correlation with malnutrition in school-age children (5 to 11 years old) of San Luis Parish, Riobamba Canton. In order to establish these associations, 142 stool samples were received, and blood extraction, the samples were transported in an appropriate way to be processed in the Parasitology Laboratory of the Faculty of Sciences at Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo. Once the analysis was carried out, it showed that there was a prevalence of parasitosis of 50.70%; the parasite found most frequently in the population was Entamoeba coli 56.57%, Entamoeba histolytica 31.31%, Chilomastix mesnili 8.08%, Endolimax nana 3.03% while Ascaris lumbricoides does not have a significant percentage. Among the main risk factors associated with parasitosis, it was found that both sociocultural and health factors were the ones that stood out most in order to identify the parasitized population. On the other hand, the study of nutritional status according to body mass index (BMI) indicated that 37% of the population is at a normal weight, 33% of the population is underweight and 30% is overweight. According to the statistical study of chi-square test to determine the correlation between nutritional status and parasitosis, it was concluded that there is a significant relationship between variables.