Study on Intestinal Infections by Parasite and Some Bacteria among Elderly People of Kathmandu Valley

Abstract

Present study was carried out among the elderly people (60+ years of age) from August 2005 to July 2006 in Kathmandu Valley. Stool samples were collected from a total of 235 elderly people (122 from government elderly home, 66 from private elderly home and 47 from a rural community (i.e those not living in elderly homes). Samples were proceeded for the required studies. The overall prevalence of intestinal parasites was found to be 41.7%, out of which 30.6% had multiple parasitism. The elderly people at government elderly home had higher parasitic prevalence (50.8%) followed by the elderly people of rural community (46.8%) and those at private elderly homes (21.2%) (P<0.05). Males were marginally more infected (43.8%) than female (40.4%) (P>0.05) and nearly equal protozoal and helminthic infection were found in both the genders. Trichuris trichiura (39.4%) was the commonest helminth and Entamoeba histolytica (19.7%) was the commonest protozoa found. Indo-Aryans had higher parasitic infection rate than the Tibeto-Burmans (46.9 Vs. 37.1%) (P>0.05). Literate people were less infected (26.2%) than the illiterate people (45.1%) (P<0.05). Likewise, vegetarians were less infected (30.1%) than non-vegetarian (48.0%) (P<0.05). Salmonella spp. in 3 samples and Vibrio spp. in 2 samples were found where as campylobacter spp. and Shigella spp. were found in nobody in the study.