Title: Correlates and Incidences of Intestinal Parasitism among Food

Handlers of a Third Class Municipality in Negros Island.

Introduction
Parasites are everywhere! There are known to be over 430 species of parasite
that can and do live on or in the human body (Littlejohn, 2015). A parasite is an
organism that lives on or in a host and gets its food from or at the expense of its
host. Parasites can cause disease in humans. Some parasitic diseases are easily
treated and some are not. The burden of these disease often rests on communities
in the tropics and subtropics, but parasitic infections can also affect people in
developed countries (CDC, 2014).
Parasitic infections, caused by intestinal helminths and protozoans, are
among the most prevalent infections in humans in developing countries. In
developed countries, protozoan parasites more commonly cause gastrointestinal
infections compared to helminths. Intestinal parasites cause a significant morbidity
and mortality in endemic countries. Helminths like, nematodes (roundworms),
cestodes (tapeworms), and trematodes (flatworms) are among the most common
parasites that inhabit the human gut (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, 2007). Intestinal helminths
rarely cause death. Instead, the burden of disease is related to less mortality than
to the chronic and insidious effects on health and nutritional status of the host
(Haque, 2007).
Giardia intestinalis, Entamoeba histolytica, Cyclospora cayetanenensis, and
Cryptosporidium spp., are among the most common intestinal protozoans that
causes giardiasis, amoebiasis, cyclosporasis, and cryptosporidiosis, respectively
(ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, 2007). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that
approximately 50 million people worldwide suffer from invasive amoebic infection
each year, resulting in 40 100 thousand deaths annually (WHO, 1997).