Blastocystis hominis infection in HIV/AIDS children with extraintestinal symptom: a case report

Abstract

Background: Blastocystis hominis is an intestinal parasite that can induce both intra- and extraintestinal symptoms. This article aims to describe the symptom findings in cases of HIV children co-infected with B. hominis. Case Presentation: A 3-year-old boy with HIV/AIDS came with diarrhea and skin rashes. The direct smear technique, formalin-ethyl acetate concentration technique, Jones medium culture, and trichrome staining were all used to investigate a single stool specimen from this patient. The results of the examination showed B. hominis infection with intensity <5/high power field (HPF). Extraintestinal symptoms such as skin rashes were not seen in this patient after appropriate treatment. Conclusion: B. hominis infection can cause extraintestinal symptoms such as a red rash on the skin. When a patient presents with a skin rash of unknown origin, having their stool tested for parasites is a concern.

Protozoan Infections Acquired from Food or Drinking Water: An Update

“…The identified sources of the infection cases and outbreaks most recently reported for waterborne and foodborne parasitic protozoans are shown in Table 1. [8,9,19,35,36,45,47,64,66,68,69,72,110,125,126,132,133,146,151,152,162,[169][170][171][172][173]178,185,186,199,200,205,207,209,211,218,220,221,228,254,255,262].…”

“…Blastocystis hominis was identified in a stool specimen, thus he was treated with TMP-STX and symptoms disappeared. The infection was probably caused by close contact with pets, eating unwashed fruits and vegetables, and not washing hands [255].…”

Food and Drinking Water as Sources of Pathogenic Protozoans: An Update

“…The number of cases and outbreaks of waterborne and foodborne protozoan infections published for each pathogen since 2019 are shown in Figure 2. [8,9,19,35,122,123,[131][132][133]142,143,154,157,[168][169][170]172,173,191,193,195,196,[198][199][200][201]209,226,233,237,[239][240][241][242][243]255,256,260,268,269,273,274,280,282,286]. Outbreaks are only shown for Cryptosporidium species.…”

“…Recent symptomatic cases that could be of food origin involved a previously healthy 13-year-old boy who had fever, headache gastrointestinal symptoms for two days after consumption of food in a restaurant [232] and a 3-year-old boy with HIV at stage three and under treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis, who suffered from gastrointestinal symptoms for about seven days and presented sunken eyes, decreased skin turgor, and a rash on the extremities [233]. After the detection of B. hominis in feces, patients were treated with TMP-STX or metronidazole and recovered [232,233]. [85], and contaminated handmade food eaten on the way home was possibly a source of B. hominis infection in schoolchildren aged 3 to 15 years old from a rural community in Mexico who showed 44% prevalence of the parasite, represented by subtypes ST1, ST2, and ST3 [234].…”