Parasitoses gastrintestinais: influência no aprendizado de crianças na fase fundamental I no Semiárido Paraibano.

Abstract

Intestinal parasites are a serious public health problem in developing countries. In Brazil, parasitosis are the most common diseases, with higher prevalence in the poorest leveis of the population. Environmental conditions, hygiene and sanitation are the main factors which have direct relationship to the incidence of intestinal parasites. Children are the group most affected by these diseases, because they still have inefficient immunity. The aim of this work was make a survey about the presence of intestinal parasites in children from Elementary School in two schools in the city of Patos-PB. To detect the presence of these parasites we used the sedimentation method according to Hoffman. We also investigated the influence of these parasites in children 's leaming. We selected a public school and a private one to collect data and compare them. In each school, we collected 25 samples (50 samples total) from children from the lst and 5th year of Elementary School. The results show a high percentage of intestinal parasites in children from public school, 61% infected by some type of intestinal parasite. On the other hand, in the private school only 20% of the samples were infected by nematode, protozoa or both. When we compared the results from each school, we observed that the percentages o f nematode and protozoa were more elevated in public school than the private, 70% nematode and 32% protozoa and 64% nematode and 36% protozoa, respectively. We also observed that the remarks of students from public school were out down when compared with those students from private school. Finally, we could suggest that the leaming was affected by the percentage of intestinal parasites.