[Intestinal parasitosis and environmental pollution: 1343 pediatric cases in Beni-Mellal, Morocco]

This study was undertaken to determine the possible health risk associated with raw wastewater use in agricultural purposes, particularly, the transmission of parasite infections among children of five regions in Beni-Mellal, Morocco. In a randomly-selected sample of 1343 children, 740 of them were from five regions using raw wastewater for agriculture, and 603 were from 4 control regions that do not practice wastewater irrigation. One or more parasite infections were identified in 50.8% of the children living in the wastewater re-use regions and in 8.2% only of the others. The seven parasites identified were Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia intestinalis, Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Enterobius vermicularis, Hymenolepis nana, Taenia saginata, which infected 34.3%, 5.1%, 20.5%, 0.4%, 5.2%, 7.2%, 0.5% in the exposed population and 4.3%, 0.3%, 3.8%, 0.3%, 1.0%, 0.6% and 0.0% in the control population respectively. In conclusion, raw wastewater use in Beni-Mellal lead to a high risk of parasite infections. Adequate treatment of wastewater is highly recommended.