Status of intestinal parasite infections among children in Bat Dambang, Cambodia

Cambodia is recognized as an endemic area for malaria and schistosomiasis (Meek, 1988;Singhasivanon, 1999;Urbani et al., 2002), but the infection status of intestinal parasites in Cambodia has not been thoroughly investigated.However, several reports show that Cambodian children and refugees are infected with intestinal parasites including nematodes, trematodes, and protozoa (Nwanyanwu et al., 1989;Lurio et al., 1991;Gyorkos et al., 1992;Lee et al., 2002).With the aid of a local Korean medical service in Cambodia, we collected 623 stool samples from children at Watkor Kindergarten and from schoolchildren in Bat Dambang, Cambodia in March 2004; Bat Dambang is located about 250 km southeast of Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia.Formalin-ether sedimentation revealed intestinal helminth eggs of Hookworm, Rhabditis sp., Hymenolepis nana, and Echinostoma sp., and protozoan cysts of Entamoeba histolytica, Entamoeba coli, Giardia lamblia, Iodamoeba butschlii, and Entamoeba polecki.Of the 623 stool specimens, 160 (25.7%) were positive.The positive rates for boys and girls were 26.2% (90/344) and 25.1% (70/279), respectively.Data revealed a highest positive rate (4.8%) for Echinostoma sp., followed by 3.4% for Hookworm (Table 1).