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International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences Research Article
Prevalence and risk factors associated with helminthic infections among pre-school children in Katsina Metropolis, Katsina State, Nigeria
Abdulhamid Ahmed and Aminu Sani
Year : 2019 | Volume: 4 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 126-133
Received on: 05/05/2019
Revised on: 05/20/2019
Accepted on: 05/23/2019
Published on: 30/06/2019
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Abdulhamid Ahmed and Aminu Sani( 2019).
Prevalence and risk factors associated with helminthic infections among pre-school children in Katsina Metropolis, Katsina State, Nigeria
. International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences, 4( 3), 126-133.
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Abstract
Intestinal helminth infections are prevalent and a matter of public health concern throughout the developing countries of the world. The present survey was conducted to assess the current prevalence and risk factors of soil-transmitted helminth infections among pre-school children in Katsina metropolis, Katsina state, Nigeria. A total of 302 children, aged 1-5 years, comprising 52.3% females and 47.7% males were involved in the study. Socio-demographic information of the children and their parents were obtained using a pre-tested questionnaire. Stool sample was collected and analyzed using formol-ether concentration technique. The result showed that 60.3% of the children were infected with at least one species of soil-transmitted helminth parasite. Ascaris lumbricoides (79.1%) was the most prevalent parasite isolated. It is followed by Hookworm (20.4%) while Trichuris trichiura (5.5%) was the least prevalent. Analysis of the possible risk factors associated with the infection among the children showed that, female gender (χ2 = 6.056; P = 0.014) and age group 4-5 years old (χ2 = 22.379; P = <0.0001) were among the main risk factors of infection among the study subjects. Other risk factors identified were, Consumption of untreated water (χ2 = 63.824; P = <0.001) and Geophagy/soil eating (χ2 = 8.217; P = 0.004). Soil-transmitted helminthiasis is thus a common phenomenon among the pre-school children in the study area. Efforts to improve the health status of the children should include regular monitoring, provision of clean water, deworming and awareness campaigns.
Keywords
Katsina, pre-school children, Parasites, Soil-transmitted helminths.
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© The Author(s) 2025. This article is published by International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
