A survey of helminthic infections in the residents of rural areas near Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

A survey was performed to define the status of helminthic infections among the residents of two rural areas near Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where systematic medical services had ceased due to the democratic changes and the loss of Soviet subsidies in the 1990s.Celeu is located about 200 km southwest of Ulaanbaatar, while Batsumber lies about 200 km northwest.The people in both areas are mainly engaged in the farming of livestock including sheep, goats, and cattle, and they live in modernized houses or in the traditional tents called the Gels.They feed on mutton and milk-derivatives with limited vegetables, and they have habits of nobathing and no-washing due to the arid climate with rare occurrence of rain.A total of 738 samples was collected in both regions for 2 weeks from July 23 to August 2, 1998.The samples consisted of 391 scotchtaped slides of anal swabs of children and of young teenagers who were under 16 in order to detect the eggs of Enterobius vermicularis, 206 fecal samples of Kato-Katz thick smears from adults, and 141 blood samples collected and dried on Nobuto's blood sampling paper (Type 1, Toyo Roshi Kaisha Ltd., Tokyo, Japan).The former two methods, scotch-taped slides and thick smears, were applied at the site, and the analysis of blood samples was subjected to ELISA after returning to the laboratory in Korea.With the use of anal swab method, the eggs of E. vermicularis were observed in 138 cases among 391 (35.2%) examined.As expected, the egg positive rate was higher for the subjected girls (38.7%) than the boys (31.0%), and there was no difference in samples ─145─