in vitro culture and isoenzyme analysis of giardia lamblia

impact on the physical growth of 29 children with chronic disease. According to
growth charts, the relative heights and weights of the subjects decreased
significantly during the course of the disease with severe villus atrophy also being
recorded. These workers also demonstrated that the degree of mucosal damage
correlated with D-xylose and lactose malabsorption. The younger patients were
also more severely affected than the older ones.
Upadhyay et al. (1985), showed that uptake of nutrients by infected, malnourished
animals was compromised. A similar phenomenon could be occurring in
malnourished children and be attributed mistakenly to the overall effects of
deprivation in poverty-stricken areas. Such an association between malnutrition
and giardiasis was reported by Gilman et al. (1985) where 51% of severely
malnourished children living in low socio-economic environments had giardiasis
compared to a prevalence of 21 % among age-matched control children. A
malnourished child has low gastric acidity, depressed intestinal immune functions,
retarded enzyme activity, poor intestinal motility and low levels of vitamins, trace
elements and minerals. All these factors make the child susceptible to enteric
infections including giardiasis (Rabbani and Islam, 1994).
It is suggested that trophozoites can restrict the absorptive area of the gut
epithelium, while competing with the host for nutrients, in addition to causing
mechanical irritation (Erlandson & Chase, 1974) leading to a malabsorption
syndrome (Heinz, 1988). During colonisation, Giardia trophozoites were shown to
leave imprints of their powerful adhesive disk on the mucosal surface (Owen et al.,
1979). This finding supports the theory of mechanical irritation playing a role in
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