Correlation between iron deficiencies and enteroparasitism in children under 14 years of age from six urbanized indigenous councils in Colombia

Introduction: the comorbidities of anaemia and enteroparasitism remain a major public health problem in many developing countries, especially in communities with economically disadvantages. Objective: to assess the correlation between enteroparasitism and iron deficiency in children under aged 14 from the urbanized indigenous councils of the city of Santiago de Cali.

Method: observational and analytical study that involved a probabilistic sample of indigenous people under 14 years old. Three serial samples of fecal matter and blood were analyzed to establish the proportions of parasitized and non-parasitized minors; anemia and depletion of iron reserves. Descriptive, univariate and bivariate statistics were used, ending with multivariate analysis of main components and hierarchical cluster.

Results: 80% of the minors were parasitized, 17% had parascaris and trichocephalon. No statistically significant association was found between parasitism and gender; 5 minors between 5-7 years presented anemia. Three groups were identified with the multivariate analysis.

Conclusions: there is a high prevalence of global intestinal parasitism, particularly, there is a significant mild-moderate infestation caused by helminths; in general terms, anemia did not predominate in the study population and no significant associations were found between this and pathogenic parasites.