Title: Study of intestinal parasitic infection among primary school children from a tribal community in Nadia district of West Bengal
Authors: Dr Soma Mondal, Dr Sumana Ghosh, Dr Kuhu Pal, Ms. Suparna Kumar
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v6i4.52
Abstract
Objective: The study was undertaken to find out the rate of intestinal parasitic infection among tribal children and to find out the contributing factors of the infection.
Method: A total of 103 students from a primary school (5 to12 years) of a local tribal community were participated in the study. A standard questionnaire was made and it was supplied to the participants. All the stool samples were examined by saline and iodine wet mount method. Data analysis was done by Graphpad Prism, version 5.0 statistical software. The results were expressed as rates and proportions. p value < 0.05 was considered as significant.
Result: Overall prevalence of intestinal parasitic infection was 22.33% among the study population. Among them 60.86% were male and 39.1% were female. Infection rate was maximum among the age group of 11-12 years (39.1%). Ascaris lumbricoides was the commonest parasite (33.3%) found followed by Entamoeba histolytica and Hook worm, 18.5% each. In the present study we found association of OPC in stool with hand washing before meal (0.03), mother’s education (0.04), walking in bare foot (0.01) and hand washing after defecation with soap (0.02) with significant p value.
Conclusion: Policies need to be strengthened to provide pure drinking water and sanitary latrine in these underprivileged areas. Along with that regular mass deworming programmes and hygiene education is required to control parasitic infections among school children.
Keywords: Intestinal parasite, tribal community, school.
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