food-borne protozoan infection in hiv^+/aids patients and healthy individuals: a case-control study in iran

Background: intestinal protozoa transmitted by food are the most common opportunistic parasites among the hiv^+/aids patients. as, there is no report about prevalence of food-borne intestinal parasites in such patients in yazd, so this study was performed to determine the prevalence of intestinal protozoa in the hiv^+/aids patients in comparison with hiv- individuals.methods: a case-control study was conducted from july 2015 to march 2016. totally, 73 patients (group i) were involved from the prevention of behavioral disorders center, yazd, central of iran. a control group (group ii) comprised 147 hiv- individuals. after collecting the stool samples; wet mount, concentration method, and modified ziehl-neelsen staining was performed. statistical analysis was done using spss 16.0 by chi-square and fisher tests.results: detected food-borne protozoa in hiv^+/aids patients were included giardia lamblia, entamoeba histolytica, blastocystis hominis, chilomastix mesnili, endolimax nana, and entamoeba coli. overall, out of 73 cases in group i, 34.2% were infected with intestinal food-borne protozoa compared with 4.1% (out of 147 cases) infection rate in group ii, which showed significant difference (p<0.05). there were no significant differ-ences between sex and incidence rate of parasitic protozoan infection between groups i and ii. however, a meaningful relationship was found between age and incidence rate of parasitic infection (p<0.05).conclusion: it is emphasized the necessity of increasing awareness among clinicians regarding the occurrence of the food-borne parasites in this population. considering their susceptibility, hiv^+/aids individuals should be educated regarding high importance of food and water safety and disinfecting protocols of suspected and hazardous foods (espe-cially unwashed vegetables and fruits) to prevent intestinal parasitic diseases