Study of prevalence rate of Campylobacter jejuni enteritis in children affected with diarrhea in Khorramabad

Children's diarrhea is one of the major health problems worldwide, especially in developing countries, accounting for nearly 4-5 million deaths per year.Campylobacter jejuni is a common human bacterial pathogen, which plays at least the same leading role to Salmonella and Shigella as the causative agent of infectious diarrhea. Regarding limited studies on different epidemiologic aspects of this bacterium in Iran, this research carried out to determine infectious enteritis caused by Campylobacter Jejuni in children with diarrhea in Khorramabad city. In this study the descriptive survey of the diarrhea caused by Campylobacter jejuni in children less than 12 years of age in Khorramabad city was conducted between September 2004 and September 2005. Stool specimens were collected from patients referred to medical laboratory of Shahid Madani children’s hospital and the correspondent laboratories with clinical symptoms of acute diarrhea. The specimens were transferred to microbiological laboratory of the veterinary faculty of Lorestan university in an attempt to isolate and identify Campylobacter jejuni species. One hundred-thirty out of the total 321 collected specimens (40.5%) were concerned to the female and 191 specimens (59.5%) to the male patients. Campylobacter jejuni species were isolated from 19 (5.92%) of the total collected specimens from which 11(3.43%) and 8 (2.49%) were associated to the female and the male children, respectively. Maximum of the positive cases were reported in the children aged less than 1 year (1.87%) and 1-3 years old (1.87%) that difference based on age groups was significant. According to the findings of the present investigation, the prevalence rate of Campylobacter enteritis in children less than 12 in Khorramabad in 2007 was 5.92 % which is same as the findings of similar studies in Zahedan (6%), Tehran (5%), Sari (4.8%) and Shiraz (5%).