[Cryptosporidiosis. Prospective epidemiologic survey in hospitalized children with diarrhea].

The pathogenic role of Cryptosporidium in diarrhea is well known in animals and now admitted in humans. Organism is common both to animals and humans. Diarrhea is particularly severe in immunocompromised patients. In order to determine occurrence of cryptosporidiosis in the pediatric population and therefore the contamination risk of the immunocompromised patients in the hospital, stool examinations were carried out in a prospective way in 190 hospitalized children with diarrhea on a 12 month-period. Cryptosporidium was detected 5 times in 4 children, among 57 positive stool examinations. No chronic carrier was found. In all the cases recovery was observed within one month. No child was immunodeficient. No outbreak was observed. The results confirm that immunologically competent children can be infected by cryptosporidium and have diarrhea, recovery and clearing of the stools always occurring spontaneously.