Bacterial, Viral and Infectious Diseases

In present, intestinal parasitic infections remain a serious public health problem globally concern in both developed and developing countries. One of them is cryptosporidiosis, a diarrheal disease caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Cryptosporidium. In human, two species – Cryptosporidium hominis and Cryptosporidium parvum are of major significance to public health. Infection is endemic in places with poor sanitation and crowded living conditions and is associated with source of water supply, age and socioeconomic status.

In Slovakia, such places largely representing the Roma settlements and housing. Because Cryptosporidiosis is potentially life-threatening in immunocompromised persons and younger children between 1 and 5 years, which are more susceptible to infection than others, for the presence of Cryptosporidium antigen we examined a total of 81 asymptomatic children aged 0-14 years of Roma national minority coming from settlements of Eastern Slovakia. The faecal samples were analysed by ELISA method and by modified Kinyoun’s acid-fast stain. The overall positive percentage was 44.4%. All faecal samples were parallel examined by the modified Kinyoun’s acid-fast stain, which had a lower detection rate. The finding of large numbers of oocysts was observed mostly at absorbance between 0.575 OD to

2.066 OD.