Study Of Giardia Lamblia Infection In Childood Incidence Clinical Picture Diagnosis And Treatment:

Manal Sadek El Defrawy

Giardiasis is an intestinal protozoal infection. Interest in this infection has increased considerably in the last decade. One reason for this has been the gradual recognition that Giardia organisms in humans are potentially pathogenic. While most frequently they occur in the absence of symptoms,yet they are sometimes capable of causing a mild, self-limiting intestinal syndrome, and even rarely are responisble for serious diseases. To study the prevalence of giardiasis among children it Kalyobia governorate, a random sample of 200 children attending the inpatient clinic of Banha University Hospital were chosen. Their ages were ranging from 3 months to 12 years. Stool examination was performed , and out of 200 samples, 55 specimens were positive for Giardia cysts or trophozoites giving an incidence of 27.5%. Mixed infections were encountered in 8 cases (14.54%). As regards to sex prevalence males (26.92%) were more or less equally affected as females (28.57). The prevalence was somewhat higher among the preschool children (31.53%) than the school children (20%). The clinical presentations of giardiasis were quite varible, In the present work 21.82% of the children had passed cysts asymptomatically when diagnosed. Foul smelling stools, anorexia, abdominalpain diarrhea and flatulence were the frequent symptoms encountered in the children. Anemia was detected in 72.75% of the patients and eosinophilia was recorded in 29.75% of cases. All the children were subjected to treatment with metronidazole in a dose of 20 mg/kg/day for a period of 7-10 days. The cure rate obtained with metronidozole was 83.63%. Cases showing failure of the first course therapy were given another course with a dose of 25-50 mg/kg/day for three days.