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BackgroundThere is limited non-anecdotal literature on the effectiveness of health policies and the prevalence of childhood anemia in rural communities in the Colombian Caribbean region. The objective of the following study is to report a parasitological and hematological episode of 94 children belonging to the child population of Villa Clarín, Colombia, and reinforce the disposable literature of local care reports.Case presentationThis article studies an event of intestinal parasitosis prevalence and anemia in 94 children between 1 and 11 years of age, grouped into three age ranges of 1 to 3 years, 4 to 6 years, and 7 to 11 years of age respectively, from the rural community of Villa Clarín, Colombia. Blood samples were obtained by venipuncture and processed through a complete blood count. The feces were collected by spontaneous evacuation and analyzed using a spontaneous sedimentation technique. The prevalence of intestinal parasitosis was 96.81%. ConclusionsEight of the 91 children in whom intestinal parasites were detected had anemia while 29 were above the normal levels of hemoglobin. An association was found with E. histolytica / dispar, but not with A. lumbricoides, T. trichiura, S. stercolaris, Uncinaria, Taenia sp, H. nana, H. diminuta, G. lamblia, T. hominis or B. hominis. The high prevalence of intestinal parasitosis and the anemia levels indicate deficiencies in environmental sanitation and hygienic-sanitary measures.

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Correct processing of blood cultures may impact individual patient management, antibiotic stewardship, and scaling up of antimicrobial resistance surveillance. To assess the quality of blood culture processing, we conducted four assessments at 16 public hospitals across different regions of Peru. We assessed the following standardized quality indicators: 1) positivity and contamination rates, 2) compliance with recommended number of bottles/sets and volume of blood sampled, 3) blood culture utilization, and 4) possible barriers for compliance with recommendations. Suboptimal performance was found, with a median contamination rate of 4.2% (range 0–15.1%), with only one third of the participating hospitals meeting the target value of < 3%; and a median positivity rate of 4.9% (range 1–8.1%), with only 6 out of the 15 surveilled hospitals meeting the target of 6–12%. None of the assessed hospitals met both targets. The median frequency of solitary blood cultures was 71.9% and only 8.9% (N = 59) of the surveyed adult bottles met the target blood volume of 8 – 12 mL, whereas 90.5% (N = 602) were underfilled. A high frequency of missed opportunities for ordering blood cultures was found (30.1%, 95/316) among patients with clinical indications for blood culture sampling. This multicenter study demonstrates important shortcomings in the quality of blood culture processing in public hospitals of Peru. It provides a national benchmark of blood culture utilization and quality indicators that can be used to monitor future quality improvement studies and diagnostic stewardship policies.