The teachers had a much higher prevalence of H. pylori antibodies. The finding suggests that these teachers (adults) might be infected in their early childhood and implies that the poor environmental and hygienic conditions might be responsible for it. It seemed that poor water supply system, sewage disposal, and other environmental hygiene in adult might play some roles in H. pylori infection in Taiwan (before early 1980s).
Our study provides new pediatric reference intervals (2.5th-97.5th percentiles) of 60-99 mg/dL for serum glucose concentrations, 8-38 IU/L for ALT, 0.4-1.1 mg/L for Cr, 8.7-18.0 mg/L for BUN, and 10-34 for B/C ratio. The B/C ratio in children was higher than those of adults, possibly due to that children had a higher intake of protein.
In order to study the seroprevalence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection among preschool children in Taiwan, a community-based survey was carried out in 54 kindergartens in 10 urban areas, 10 rural areas, and 2 aboriginal areas randomly selected through stratified sampling. Serum specimens of 2,538 preschool children were screened for HEV antibodies (anti-HEV) by a commercially available enzyme immunoassay. The odd ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated through multiple logistic regression analysis. A total of 86 children were anti-HEV seropositive, giving a prevalence of 3.4%. The prevalence of anti-HEV was 3.9% (19 of 484) among aboriginal children, a significantly increased seroprevalence compared with that among children who lived in urban areas (OR = 1.68; 95% CI = 1.56-2.95; P < 0.05). Females had a higher anti-HEV seroprevalence than the males (OR = 1.55; 95% CI = 1.14-2.54; P < 0.05). Rates of anti-HEV antibody increased with age in aboriginal areas (chi(2) for trend = 5.59, P = 0.02), but decreased with age in non-aboriginal areas. The poor water supply system, poor sewage disposal, exposure to wild animals, and other environmental conditions in the aboriginal areas might have played a role in their infection with HEV in Taiwan.
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