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Malnutrition and susceptibility to enteroparasites: reinfection rates after mass chemotherapy
Author(s) -
Saldiva S. R. M.,
Carvalho H. B.,
Castilho V. P.,
Struchiner C. J.,
Massad E.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.667
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3016
pISSN - 0269-5022
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-3016.2002.00402.x
Subject(s) - malnutrition , medicine , confounding , pediatrics , multivariate analysis , environmental health
Summary The evidence that relates malnutrition to enteroparasite infections arises from studies that demonstrate the improvement of nutritional indicators after antiparasitism treatment. However, the role of malnutrition as an aggravating factor to the susceptibility to enteroparasite infections is still not fully understood. We investigated the correlation between malnutrition and enteroparasite infection after mass chemotherapy, in a poor city of São Paulo State, Brazil. The sample comprised 759 children between 1 and 10 years of age of whom 585 were followed up for a period of 1 year and periodically assessed for reinfection with enteroparasites. One year of follow‐up after mass chemotherapy demonstrated that 38% of the undernourished children were reinfected with enteroparasites, as compared with 25% of the eutrophic children ( P = 0.033). The survival multivariate analysis demonstrated that, after controlling for the potential confounding variables, maternal literacy and per capita income rate, malnutrition was associated with susceptibility to reinfection ( P = 0.13). We demonstrate that, although maternal literacy and per capita income rate are indeed confounding variables, malnutrition contributes to an increase in the risk of enteroparasite infections.