Predominance of Giardia lamblia assemblage A among iron deficiency anaemic pre-school Egyptian children

Intestinal parasites and nutritional deficiency can coexist and influence each other. This study aimed to clarify the association between Giardia genotypes and presence of iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) among pre-school Egyptian children. Two groups (IDA and non-anaemic) of giardiasis children (44/group) were selected according to their recovery response after treatment of giardiasis. Each group included 24 and 20 gastrointestinal symptomatic and asymptomatic, respectively. Giardia human genotypes were performed by intergenic spacer (IGS) gene based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with high-resolution melting curve (HRM). PCR/HRM proved that Tms of assemblage A and B ranged from 79.31 ± 0.29 to 84.77 ± 0.31. In IDA patients, assemblages A and B were found among 40/44 (90.9 %) and 4/44 (9.1 %), respectively, while in non-anaemic patients, assemblages A and B were found in 10/44 (22.7 %) and 32/44 (72.7 %), respectively, beside two (4.6 %) cases had mixed infection. The difference was statistically significant. No significant relation was found between symptomatic or asymptomatic assemblages and IDA as assemblage A was found in 21/24 (87.5 %) and 19/20 (95 %) of symptomatic and asymptomatic, respectively, while 3/24 (12.5 %) and 1/20 (5 %) of assemblage B were symptomatic was asymptomatic, respectively. A significant relation was found between assemblage A subtypes distribution among IDA patients as AI and AII were detected on 23 (52.3 %) and 16 (36.4 %) of patients, respectively, while one case (2.3 %) had mixed infection. In conclusion, assemblage A is predominant among IDA giardiasis children suggesting its role in enhancing the occurrence of IDA while B has a protective role.