Botulism and Preserved Green Olives

and 120 participants (89%) reported a variety of gastrointestinal symptoms, including epigastric pain. Persons with active infection were no more likely to report epigastric pain (75 [78%] of 97) than persons without infections (30 [79%] of 38). One participant reported gastric cancer and was H. pylori–positive. Seven participants reported a family history of gastric cancer; all were H. pylori–positive. Five participants, of whom 3 were H. pylori–positive, reported a history of gastric surgery for peptic ulcer disease. More rural participants (23 of 27) reported a history of ruptured ulcers or a family member with gastric cancer than did urban participants (74 of 108). The frequency of reported gastrointestinal symptoms was similar between urban and rural participants. To our knowledge, this is the first survey of H. pylori infection in Georgia. We found a high rate of infection with H. pylori. Participants also reported a very high rate of dyspeptic symptoms, although these were not correlated with infection. This small convenience sample survey has several limitations, however. First, our participants did not constitute a systematically selected population sample. Second, rural populations were underrepresented. Finally, we used neighborhood or village of residence as a marker for socioeconomic status without specific income information from the participants. Therefore, socioeconomic status misclassification possibly occurred and the association between infection and socioeconomic status may not be accurate. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that we substantially overor underrepresented infection prevalence in the general population. Despite the limitations of this study, our results clearly indicate that H. pylori is a serious public health problem in Georgia. There is a pressing need to educate medical professionals and the general public about H. pylori infection and gastrointestinal illness and to introduce diagnosis of this infection and appropriate treatment for it into standard medical practice. In addition, rigorous population surveys that include children are needed to identify high-risk groups of persons for targeted public health interventions (7).