Polyparasitic infections in school children of equatorial guinea

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of an epidemiological survey to determine the prevalence of polyparasitism in the intestine of nursery, primary, and secondary school pupils in Anisok District of Wele-Nzas Provence, Equatorial Guinea. A total of 1,276(98%) out of 1,302 pupils whose faecal
samples were examined were infected with various species of different parasites. The main parasites included .Ascaris lumbricoides (40.3%), Trichuris trlchiura (39.5%), Entamoeba histolytica (8.8%), Ancylostoma duodenalis (4.1%), while other parasites, which constituted (11.3%) were
hookworm, Giardia lamblia, Heterophytes heterophytes, Strongyloides stercoralis, Hymenolepis nana, Schistosoma species, Diphylobotrium latum, Taenia species, Enterobius vermicularis, Balalantidium coli, Fasciola species, Hymenolepis diminuta and Paragonimus westermani. Overall
parasitism was high and mixed infection among both sexes had an  incidence of 83.13%. The difference infection rates among males and females for Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, and Entamoeba histolytica was very negligible. Nevertheless, more females were infected with Taenia specie (83.0%) than males. Male stool samples showed a high infection rate for Ancylostoma duodenalis (60.7%), Hookworm (64.9%), Giardia (lamblia) intestinalis (65.2%), and Heterophytes heterophytes (66.7%) than the females In general, the result showed no significant difference (p>0.05) in the infection rate and parasite distribution pattern between the sexes examined. However, infection ratio and parasites distribution were highly significant (p<0.01) among the different age groups, with highest infection rate occurring in 10-15 years age group. Based on the above observations, there is urgent need for public health enlightenment on the prevention of parasitic disease infections in the district.

Keywords: Polyparasitism, worm, infections, school children, sex, age