Intestinal parasitosis in children of the Ambato canton, Ecuador

Abstract

Introduction. Intestinal parasitism remains a serious public health pro-blem, especially for children. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of intestinal parasitism in children from 5 to 9 years of age from the Totoras Parish of the Ambato canton. Methodology. This is an observational, descriptive, prospective, and cross-sectional study where 153 children were selected by pro-babilistic sampling, who were asked for a stool specimen for direct examination (with saline and Lugol) and the Willis flotation technique. Results. 77.1% of the children had parasites, predominating polyparasitism (77%) over monoparasitism (23%) and chromists/protozoa over helminths (91.7% versus 8.3%). The main spe-cies found were Blastocystis spp. (47.6%), Entamoeba coli (32.03%) and Endolimax nana (28.1%). Conclusions. It is concluded that the children of the Totoras Parish have a high frequency of intestinal parasitism, so it is important to carry out anti-parasitic prevention and treatment campaigns for this community of children, to reduce the prevalence of these microbial agents.