Molecular Analysis of the Enteric Protozoa Associated with Acute Diarrhea in Hospitalized Children

Abstract

Pediatric diarrhea is a common cause of death among children under 5 years of age. In the current study, we investigated the frequency of intestinal parasites among 580 pediatric patients with chronic diarrhea. Parasitic protozoa (all species combined) were detected by molecular tools in 22.9% of the children and the most common parasite was Cryptosporidium spp. (15.1%). Blastocystis hominis was detected in 4.7%, Dientamoeba fragilis in 4%, Giardia duodenalis in 1.7%, and Entamoeba histolytica in 0.17%. Protozoan infections were observed among all regional groups, but prevalence was highest among Qatari subjects and during the winter season. Typing of Cryptosporidium spp. revealed a predominance of Cryptosporidium parvum in 92% of cases with mostly the IIdA20G1 subtype. Subtypes IIdA19G2, IIdA18G2, IIdA18G1, IIdA17G1, IIdA16G1, and IIdA14G1 were also detected. For Cryptosporidium hominis, IbA10G2 and IbA9G3 subtypes were identified. This study provides supplementary information for implementing prevention and control strategies to reduce the burden of these pediatric protozoan infections. Further analyses are required to better understand the local epidemiology and transmission of Cryptosporidium spp. in Qatar.

Prevalence of Cryptosporidium, Blastocystis, and other opportunistic infections in patients with primary and acquired immunodeficiency

“…Cryptosporidium prevalence found in this study is lower than that reported for children with diarrhea in Canada which was at 15.7% (Iqbal et al 2015), 10.4% in Tanzania, and 15.1% in Qatar (Boughattas et al 2017). These variations could be explained by the differences in the region of study, the hygiene practices, as well as the socio-economic status of participants involved in the studies.…”

“…In our study, the Cryptosporidium species was detected in 3.6% of children, which is similar to the 1.2% in the Teheran study (Tahvildar-Biderouni and Salehi 2014 ), 2% in Poland (Solarczyk et al 2010 ) 3.9% of the Cryptosporidium -infected children in the study of Tanzania (Tellevik et al 2015 ), 4.6% in Ethiopia (de Lucio et al 2016 ), and 2.4% Iranian children (Taghipour et al 2011 ). Cryptosporidium prevalence found in this study is lower than that reported for children with diarrhea in Canada which was at 15.7% (Iqbal et al 2015 ), 10.4% in Tanzania, and 15.1% in Qatar (Boughattas et al 2017 ). These variations could be explained by the differences in the region of study, the hygiene practices, as well as the socio-economic status of participants involved in the studies.…”

Seasonal monitoring of Cryptosporidium species and genetic diversity in neonatal dairy calves on two large-scale farms in Xinjiang, China

“…IIdA15G1 was rst detected in Ningxia and then in Xinjiang [24], Heilongjiang [32], Sichuan [26], and Beijing [33]. There have been several reports of human infections with IIdA14G1 and IIdA15G1 [35,36]. The presence of IIdA14G1 and IIdA15G1 indicates the genetic diversity of C. parvum in neonatal dairy calves in Xinjiang, and the data also suggest that the IId family of C. parvum subtypes derived from cattle is distributed uniquely in China.…”

Asymptomatic protozoa community infections in humans from southwestern China

“…Protozoan genotype has been suggested as one of the most decisive predictors, although not the only one. It is expected that the growing development of new diagnostic tools, particularly molecular techniques, contributes to clarify the distinction between pathogenic and non-pathogenic lineages as well as pathophysiological interactions and other epidemiological features of interest [19].…”

“…Many previous studies have explored and reported the presence of more than one pathogen in diarrhoeal disease cases [6,19,20] as well as in healthy individuals [21,22], but only a few of them have been addressed to explore the impact of concomitant enteric infections and to characterize the enteric communities and the existence of specific interactions [15,23]. These interactions, at least between 2 specific enteric pathogens, are well documented in the veterinary field, such as the association of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli and rotavirus that lead to severe diarrhoea in piglets as an example [24] but it has not been addressed in immunocompetent humans until recently [15,25].…”