الفهرس 
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Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess the
prevalence of parasitic diseases in preschool
children and its effect on their growth status in
Damanhour city, Elbehera Governorate, Egypt.
This study was conducted on 500 preschool
children (2-6years) living in different areas in
Damanhour City, Elbehera Governorate, Egypt.
They were taken randomly after excluding Children
with systemic diseases or hereditary blood disease,
also children taking antihelmenthic drugs during the
last 6 months or having history of blood transfusion.
The present study revealed that prevalence of
parasitic infestation among preschool children was
52.2%, regarding protozoal infections; E.histolytica
was found in 16.8%, Giardia in 14.8% and both in
1.8% of our preschool children. Regarding the
prevalence of helminthes in our study, we found
that Ascaris infection was 14% of all cases. While
The prevalence rates of Ancylostoma duodenale ,
E.vermicularis and H.nana infections were 5%, 4%
and 0.2% respectively.
In our study mixed parasitic infestation was
reported in 3.6% of cases who had double infestations. Most of infested children were
belonging to low social class (45.9%) while most of
non infected ones belonged to high social class
(45.2%).
The clinical characteristics of infected
children showed that abdominal colic, anorexia,
were the commonest symptoms while pallor,
pitriasis alba were the commonest signs.
Our study revealed significantly lower WAZ
and WHZ among infested children compared to non
infested ones. Moreover, stunting is found in 23%
of infested children, underweight in 13.8% while
wasting in 6.2%. In this work the prevalence of
anemia was 39% of studied group; prevalence
among children infected with parasites was
significantly higher than that among non infected
children (48.2% and 28.8% respectively).
Logistic regression analysis showed that the
prevalence rate of parasitic infestation was
attributed to the lack of sanitary measures such as
improper hand washing, and playing in the street
bare footed, playing with animals as well as
infected family members.