Brote familiar de fascioliasis en Venezuela

of the 9 cases of human fascioliasis recorded in venezuela, 4 have been published in the last 10 years, 2 of them originating from andean region. the well known transmission of fascioliasis in cattle and the clinical condition of a 14-year-old girl with abdominal discomfort, vomiting, eosinophilia and previous abundant ingestion of watercress, motivated the field study in the site of occurrence (timotes, edo. mérida in the andean region) to learn the risk of community infection. sixty-five people were evaluated clinically and serologically. coprology was done in 37 and abdominal ultrasound in 33 persons. elisa with adult fasciola hepatica soluble extract (afhes- elisa) was performed with 9 persons being positive. western blot (wb) was carried out on all elisa positive sera, resulting in 5 that recognized 9, 14, 27 and 65 kda specific molecules. the remaining four sera, with weak reactivity by elisa, did not have this recognition pattern. by stool examination, we found entamoeba coli, e. histolytica/dispar, blastocystis hominis, giardia lamblia, endolimax nana and ascaris lumbricoides. three of the 5 positive people by afhes-elisa and afhes-wb had f. hepatica eggs in their feces. the 5 positive cases are girls of a family, sisters and whose parents do not have the infection, although all consume watercress in salads with other vegetables from that region. the present study constitutes the first report of a well established focus of fascioliasis with human repercussion in venezuela.