Maternal Cryptosporidium Infection Among Antenatal Attendees In Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This study investigated maternal Cryptosporidium infection, 510 feacal samples were randomly collected from volunteered consented antenatal attendees in Makurdi Township. The stool samples were concentrated using formol-ether oocyst concentration technique, stained with modified Ziehl Neelson cold stain and oocysts identified by microscopy. HIV sero-status was determined using Determine (Inverness, Japan) and confirmed with Uni-Gold HIV1/2 (Trinity Biotech, USA). Chi square (χ2) in an SPSS (version 20.0) software was used to compare categorical variables and significant association was determined at 95% level of probability. Cryptosporidium oocyst was identified in 98(19.2%) of the faecal samples examined. HIV-positive attendees were more likely than HIV-negative to be infected by Cryptosporidium (84.4% vs 9.9%, P=0.000). (you have done this study, you should be able to state categorically. What is the correlation between HIV positive and cryptosporidium infection) We found a strong association between stool consistency (P=0.000), duration of diarrhoea (P=0.000), possession of domestic animals (P=0.000) and the infection rate. There was also a significant difference (P=0.000) between the rate of infection and sources of drinking water. However, infection could not be associated with age (P=0.121), type of toilet system in use (P=0.793) and literacy (P=0.665)