Dr. Kassai Tibor szerk.: Parasitologia Hungarica 2. (Budapest, 1969)

the vitamin A status and the value of serum carotene were determined from venous fasting blood. All measurements were taken at the same relative time on the days before and after comple tion of treatments and dietary supplementations

. Determination of the vitamin was carried Out "by the TEA-colour reaction (5, 17). The beta-carotene content of carrots used for supplementation of diet was determined by KRAMER'S method (9). The physicians of these state homes had not observed any clinical symptoms in the children,

hence they had not considered the pos sibility of giardiasis before our investigations

. Taking uninfected children as comparative controls, living in state homes we tried, in different ways, to influence the vitamin A status of the infected children: a. / with vitamin A administration, b. / with raw carrot administration, c. / with administration of antiparasitic drugs, and d. / with the combination of drug and vitamin administration. In addition, we had the opportunity to carry out investigations for 6 weeks on 10 infected children, as against four, who were used as controls,and again on 10 infected subjects for 3 years. The main purpose of our observations was to establish a relationship between vitamin A status and reinfestation after treatments

. Results a./ Ten infected children receiver 150,000 I.U. vitamin A* daily on two consecutive days without therapy (E i g. 1). On the fourth day of experiment following treatment the vitamin A level was still high in comparison with that of the control but later had fallen again to the starting level.In agreement with * Egyesült Gyógyszer- és Tápszergyár (Budapest), 50,000 I.IT. axerophth. per capsules.