Nutritional Status of Preschool Children Infected With Giardia Intestinalis

Giardia intestinalis is the most common intestinal parasite in human worldwide. it can produce a wide spectrum of clinicalmanifestations. in order to assess the nutritional status of preschool children infected with giardia intestinalis, a cross sectionalstudy was made in marvdasht city, fars province, southern iran. a total of 337 preschool boys and girls aged 3-6years were randomly selected for stool examination of intestinal parasites as well as measurement of height, weight, headand arm circumferences. a total of 77 individuals were infected with g. intestinalis. seventy-one individuals who had onlyg. intestinalis and 229 with no parasitic infections were selected as infected and control groups, respectively. z-score of -2sd was used as cut off point of malnutrition. a total of 9 (12.7%) of infected children and 18 (7.9%) of non infected individualshad a height for age z-score (haz) below -2sd. eight (11.3%) of former group had a weight for age z-score (waz) under-2sd. in control group 4.4% of preschool children had waz under-2sd. 4.2% of infected children had a weight for height z-score (whz) under-2sd but none of the controls had it. statistical analysis showed a significant differencein height, weight, head circumference, haz, and waz between infected and control children (p<0.05). also, haz and waz, was significantly different between these two groups, but not for whz. a higher infection with g. intestinalis in the children with lower parents’ education was observed. however the distribution of malnutrition was not significantlydifferent between boys and girls. in conclusion the present study indicated that giardiasis retarded growth of preschool childrenin this region.