Cui Yutao: What should we pay attention to when it comes to children’s intestinal health?

Ascariasis is a common disease in children. Ascariasis is a disease caused by roundworms parasitizing the human intestine. Ascaris eggs contaminate soil, water or food, and people become sick if they eat the contaminated food. Children tend to play with mud. If their hands are stained with ascarid eggs and they do not wash their hands before meals, they are prone to ascariasis. Children suffering from ascariasis will have some symptoms, such as diarrhea and loss of appetite. Parents should pay attention and check their children in time.

Ascariasis is the most common parasitic disease caused by Ascaris lumbricoides parasitizing the small intestine or other organs of the human body. It is widely prevalent in China and mostly occurs in children. The clinical manifestations vary greatly depending on the site of parasitism or invasion and the degree of infection. When it is limited to the intestines, it is called intestinal ascariasis. Most cases of intestinal ascariasis have no subjective symptoms, but children patients often have gastrointestinal symptoms to varying degrees. When ascaris enters organs such as the bile duct, pancreas, appendix and liver, or when the larvae migrate to organs such as the lungs, eyes, brain, thyroid and spinal cord, they can cause corresponding ectopic lesions. In severe cases, they can cause complications such as cholangitis, pancreatitis, appendicitis, intestinal obstruction, intestinal perforation and peritonitis.

1. Control the source of infection. Expelling ascaris from the human intestine is an important measure to control the source of infection. Patients with intestinal ascariasis should be actively discovered and treated, and susceptible people should be checked and treated regularly, especially those in kindergartens, primary schools and rural residents. When a sampling survey finds that more than half of the infected people are infected, general treatment can be carried out. 2 to 3 months after the peak of infection (such as winter or autumn), the body can be collected to take anthelmintic drugs, and the expelled worms and feces should be handled in time to avoid polluting the environment.

2. Pay attention to personal hygiene and develop good personal hygiene habits, wash hands before and after meals; do not drink raw water, do not eat unclean fruits and vegetables; cut nails frequently; do not defecate anywhere, etc. Regular hygiene standardization inspections should be conducted on restaurants and food outlets, and it is prohibited to use raw water to make beverages, etc.

3. Strengthen feces management and improve environmental hygiene, treat feces harmlessly, do not use raw feces for fertilizer, do not graze pigs, etc. Use harmless human feces as fertilizer. Preventing feces from polluting the environment is an important measure to cut off the transmission route of roundworms. In areas where water feces are used as fertilizer, the five-grid three-tank feces storage method can be used to make most of the worm eggs in the feces settle to the bottom of the tank. Due to the action of free ammonia in the feces and anaerobic fermentation, the worm eggs can be killed and the fertilizer efficiency will be increased. Fermentation in biogas digesters can solve the lighting and cooking problems of farmers and is beneficial to the harmless treatment of feces. The feces residue can be removed about once every six months. At this time, most of the worm eggs have lost their ability to infect. In areas where feces are used as fertilizer, mud composting can be used. After three days, the temperature in the feces pile can rise to 52°C or higher, which can kill roundworm eggs.

Ascariasis is a disease that almost every child will have. Parents can pay attention to their children's hygiene and health in daily life so that they will not easily get sick. The treatment of ascariasis is not very difficult, so parents don’t need to worry too much. If it is discovered and treated in time, the disease will get better soon. Parents should pay more attention to their children's physical changes in daily life.