The prevalence of Cryptosporidium parvum and its relationship to the nutritional status of HIV- positive children suffering from diarrhea in Western Kenya

Abstract

In this study, prevalence of Cryptosporidium parvum was studied in relationship to nutrition amongst HIV positive children with diarrhea as a presenting sign. Watery to loose stool and whole blood specimen were collected from completely randomized inpatient and out patient children. The collected whole blood specimens were screened using ELISA, and Particle Agglutination (Serodia) techniques for HIV (Japan). Stool specimen for those who were confirmed to be HIV positive were processed for microscopy using Kinyoun’s technique . The results obtained were analyzed using linear regression for t, P at 95% Confidence Interval for significance levels in Minitab. The findings show that diarrhea in immunocompromised children in Western Kenya was majorly due to Enterobacterieceae (92.5%) and partly due to C. parvum infection (7.5%). Consequently this adversely affected growth and development in terms of weight and age. Based on prolonged diarrhea duration amongst these children it is clear that there were other co-infecting factors that aggravate the problem. It is therefore concluded that C. parvum is more prevalent in HIV negative children than in HIV positive children with diarrhea; and during onset of diarrhea, HIV positive children develop mild malnutrition as diarrhea duration progressed from normal nutrition to malnutrition. However in HIV negative children, nutrition status does not rapidly advance to a malnutrition state as observed in HIV positive children.