奈良県におけるベトナム難民の健康調査 Ｉ 主として消化管ぜん虫感染について

Abstract

Vietnamese refugees seem to be a unique population in Japan, because of their possible high frequency in parasitic infections. The precise knowledges on the health status of these people are important from the public health point of view. The present contribution deals with the parasitological survey on Vietnamese refugees (51 cases) who are temporarily staying in Gose Catholic Church, Nara Prefecture, Japan.The feces were examined for the eggs of intestinal helminth by the thick smear method, formalin-ether sedimentation method (MGL method), Harada and Mori's cultivation method and floatation technique (using saturated sodium chloride solution). Twenty-one refugees out of 51 (41.2%) were infected with one or more intestinal helminth species. A variety of helminth infections were detected, including Ascaris lumbricoides infection (31.4% in infection rate), hookworm (5.9%) Trichuris trichiura (3.9%) and Trichostrongylus sp. (2.0%). In this population, 28 cases were examined peripheral blood smear. All of these cases were negative for Plasmodium ssp. Both the number of peripheral eosinophils and serum IgE level correlated with incidence of hookworm and T. trichiura infections. Thus the unusually high frequency of intestinal parasitic infection in Vietnamese refugees compared with Japanese community strongly recommends clinical examination and treatment for new-coming Vietnamese refugees.