Abstract:
Back ground: Soil-transmitted helminths are a major public problem in Ethiopia. Even if deworming and preventive chemotherapy is implemented, however the problem and associated factors of soil transmitted helminthiasis in wetland area are not mostly investigated.
Objective: -To assess prevalence of soil transmitted helminthiasis and associated factors among school age children in wetland and non-wetland areas of Fogera woreda North West, Ethiopia.
Methods: A community based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted. A multistage stratified random sampling method with proportional sample size allocation was used to select school age children from wetland and non-wetland kebeles. The data were collected by pretested structured questionnaire and the stool samples also collected from each child by laboratory professionals. The data was entered into Epi data version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 20 for data cleaning and analysis. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regressions were employed to identify factors associated with active trachoma.
Result: -Among 716 households visited, 700 school age children gave complete responses with response rate of 97.8%. The overall prevalence of soil transmitted helminthiasis was 30.3 %, (95%CI: 26.9, 33.9%) of these 33.6%, (95% CI: 28.8, 39.6%) from wetland and 27%, (95% CI: (21.9, 31.6) from non-wetland area school age children were positive for STH. Moreover, the study identified that dirty nail (AOR= 2.963, 95% CI: 1.924, 4.564), untrimmed nail (AOR= 2.630, 95% CI: 1.770, 3.909), not washing hands after defecation (AOR= 2.296, 95% CI: 1.139, 4.630), human feces (AOR= 2.014, 95% CI: 1.331, 3.047), playing with soil/mud (AOR= 1.758, 95% CI: 1.82, 2.614) and not washing hands after any waste contact (AOR= 1.667, 95% CI: 1.141, 2.436), were significant predictor for soil transmitted helminthiasis among school age children.
Conclusions: The overall prevalence of soil transmitted helminthiasis among school age children in Fogera woreda was 30.6% and had no significance difference. Soil transmitted helminthiasis infection is a major public health problem. Human feces, not washing hands after defecation, untrimmed fingernail, dirty nail, not washing hands after any waste contact and children played with soil/mud were found to be significantly associated with soil transmitted helminthiasis infections among school age children. Therefore, deworming complemented with preventive measures such as improvement of sanitation and hygiene behavior of school age children must be done to control STH in the study area.
Keywords: - Fogera woreda, Non-wetland Area, STH and wetland Area.