• Fateme Ziyaee, Abdolvahab Alborzi, Gholamreza Pouladfar, Bahman Pourabbas, Sadaf Asaee, and Sareh Roosta.
• Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2020 Oct 1; 23 (10): 665-671.

BackgroundThe childhood period is considered to be the primary period for acquisition of the Helicobacter pylori. The high prevalence rates from developing countries are associated with gastric cancer. A decreasing trend of its prevalence has been reported from different parts of the world. Determining the prevalence rate could be important in choosing preventive strategies. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of H. pylori among a group of children from southern Iran to provide an update on the current status of the disease.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional population-based study conducted in Shiraz, southern Iran, from January 2014 to December 2015. Four groups including neonates, children aged 6 months to 3 years, 10- and 15-year-old children were included. Multi-monoclonal stool antibody test was used for diagnosis.ResultsAmong 436 participants, 24.8% (95% CI: 20.8-29.1) had a positive test for H. pylori: 25% in neonates (95% CI: 16.2-36.1), 22% in children aged 6 months to 3 years (95% CI: 15.2-30.2), 19.5% in the 10-year-old (95% CI: 12.3-29.4), and 29.2% in 15-year-old children (95% CI: 21-39). Sex, age, number of siblings, owning a pet, parents' smoking status, parental education, residential area, birth weight, and feeding status were not found to be statistically significant predictors of H. pylori antigen positivity (P > 0.05).ConclusionThe prevalence of H. pylori was estimated to be low in southern Iran in comparison with previous reports or other developing countries. Preventive strategies with respect to low prevalence rates may be considered in the childhood period.© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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