摘要：The intestinal parasitic infections are an important public health problem in Colombia. The early and frequent exposure to the enteroparasites has been related with delay growth and delay psychomotor and mental development of children; in addition, the nematodes larvae can migrate to vital organs like liver, lung, lymphatic ganglia and brain, causing injuries in these. The propose of this study was to establish the intestinal parasitic infection and malnutrition frequency in a population of 392 children with ages between 3 and 5 years old, living at risk zone from Santa Marta city. For evaluating the nutritional status of children, were measured the anthropometric indices as weight for age (WA) and height for age (HA). The intestinal parasites frequency was of the 55.1% (216/392), the parasites with potential pathogenicity were Entamoeba histolytica (19.9%), Giardia duodenalis (12.7%), Blastocystis hominis (11.7%), and Ascaris lumbricoides (10.7%). The poliparasitism was present in 17.3% of the population (65/392). The acute malnutrition was observed in 41.8% and the chronicle in the 30.1% of the children. A statistically significant association between the general parasitism and the WA indices (p= 0.023) was found, however no significant association between the parasitic infection and HA indices was observed (p= 0.11). The present result demonstrates that the intestinal parasitic infection is high in the vulnerable children population from Santa Marta city, nevertheless is not possible to assure that a relation causes to effect exists between the parasitism and the nutritional deficit. Keywords: Intestinal parasites, frequency, anthropometric indices, malnutrition.
