Parasitismo en un precario de San José, Costa Rica

the last two national surveys on intestinal parasitosis realized in costa rica (1982 and 1996) showed an impressive improvement of intestinal helmintiasis, with rates lower than 5%. nevertheless, this problem is relegated to marginal communities, such as is demonstrated in this paper. stool samples of feces from 76 (56%) of the inhabitants of a squatter settlement near the tiribí river, san josé, costa rica were analyzed by direct wet smears, kato, stoll, and agar culture method to looking for strongyloides. the forty-five percent of the people studied had at least one kind of intestinal parasites. the most frequently found parasites were entamoeba coli (27%), trichuris (18%), ascaris (15%). these data prove that the problem of intestinal parasitosis is ongoing and is masked in national surveys that show a fictitiously low rates for the country.