Assessment of risk and sero-prevalence of Helicobacter pylori colonization among remote Orang Asli tribes in Peninsula Malaysia

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Author: Thevakumar K.; Chandren J.R.; Perez-Perez G.I.; Chua E.G.; Teh L.K.; Salleh M.Z.; Tan J.A.M.A.; Leow A.H.R.; Goh K.L.; Tay A.C.Y.; Marshall B.J.; Vadivelu J.; Loke M.F.; Wong L.P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science 2016
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84979536494&doi=10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0159830&partnerID=40&md5=57f40bdcb9276719803c8657a9568211

The epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is related to human poverty with marked differences between developing and developed countries. Socioeconomic factors and living standards are the main determinants of the age-dependent acquisition rate of H. pylori, and consequently its prevalence. The aim of this study was to assess the risk and sero-prevalence of H. pylori colonization among Orang Asli in Peninsula Malaysia. This cross-sectional study was conducted on Orang Asli subjects in seven isolated settlements spanning across all three major tribes (Negrito, Proto Malay and Senoi) in Malaysia. Sociodemographic characteristics of the subjects were obtained through interview. Subjects were tested for H. pylori colonization based on CagA and whole cell (WC) antigen serological assays. A total of 275 subjects participated in this study. Among these subjects, 115 (44.7%) were H. pylori sero-positive with highest sero-prevalence among Negrito (65.7%). Among subjects who were H. pylori sero-positive, CagA sero positivity was also significantly higher among Negrito. The highest proportion of respondents reported to be H. pylori sero-positive was from age group 30 years old and below (57.9%), males (56.2%), Negrito (48.6%) and live in bamboo house (92.3%). The highest proportion of respondents reported to be CagA sero-positive was from age group 30 years old and below (41.4%), males (35.6%) and Negrito (48.6%). The results of this study demonstrate that H. pylori colonization can be related to age, gender, tribes and house materials and CagA sero-positive stain closely associated with age, gender and tribes. © 2016 Thevakumar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.