EJMS

Abstract

Background: Diarrhea is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in many African countries, especially among immunocompromised patients and under five years children. Over the last decade, the protozoan parasite cryptosporidium spp has been shown to be a significant cause of gastro-enteritis in the immunocompetent and immunocompromised patients in both the developed and developing world. Objective: Evaluation and comparative study of coproantigen detection by ELISA with MZN in diagnosis of cryptosporidiosis in diarrheic children. Materials and Methods: 80 diarrheic children Including 40 Immunocompromised diarrheic children and 40 Immunocompetent diarrheic children, ranging in the age from three months to five years were examined and stool samples were collected.The stool samples were examined for detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts using MZN and ELISA. Results: Cryptosporidial infection rate was higher in immunocompromised children (20% by ELISA and 7.5% by MZN) than in immunocompetent children (7.5% by ELISA and 0% by MZN) also ,among the whole 80 diarrheic cases included in the study, three cases only were positive by MZN, while positivity was in 11 cases by ELISA. The sensitivity of ELISA was 100% and the specificity was 86% while the negative predictive value was 100% and positive predictive value 27.27%. These results showed that, ELISA is a good sensitive method especially as a negative predictive one for detection of C. parvum compared with MZN. Conclusion: The results showed that, ELISA is a good sensitive method especially as a negative predictive one for detection of C. parvum compared with MZN.