Contamination of soils with eggs of Toxocara in a subtropical city in Argentina

Abstract

Abstract A total of 475 soil samples were collected from five public park playgrounds, 17 kindergarten sandpits and 124 housing estates in Resistencia, a medium-sized subtropical-region city in Argentina, and processed by the centrifugal flotation method. Eggs of Toxocara spp. were present in five (3.4%) of the 146 habitats surveyed and in six (1.3%) of the 475 samples examined. Twenty per cent of public parks, 5.9% of kindergarten sandpits and 2.4% of housing estates were contaminated with Toxocara eggs. Depending on the number of samples examined from the three types of habitat, contamination by Toxocara was 0.7% in public park playgrounds, 1.2% in kindergarten sandpits and 1.6% in the housing estates. High prevalences of Ancylostomidae eggs were also found especially in public park playgrounds with a value of 100%, compared with 19.4% found in housing estates and 11.8% in kindergarten samples. These results suggest that in Resistencia, human infections with Toxocara are likely to occur within the limits of housing estates more so than in public parks or open spaces.