PREVALANCE OF PARASITES IN STOOL IN CHILDREN OF SLUM AREA IN CHATTOGRAM METROPOLITON

Abstract

Intestinal parasitic infections are considered as a major cause for diarrhea, malnutrition and various physical illnesses among children in Bangladesh. There is severe scarcity of information on the prevalence of parasitic infection among slum children in Chattogram, Bangladesh. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted to identify different species of parasites in stool samples of children. A total of 400 samples and data were collected from different slums of Chattogram city through this study. All collected samples were screened by microscopic examination for detecting parasite eggs or spores. Data were analyzed for determining the frequency distributions and visualization. A total of 158 boys and 242 girls were included in study sample. Giardia spp (32%), Trichuris trichuira (16%) and Ascaris lumbricoides (52%) were found as the most frequent parasites in the study area. The boys were more prone to infection (7.59%) than the girls (5.37%). Study revealed that the prevalence of parasite is lower in the group who used anthelmintic drugs (5.84%) in compare to non-administered group (6.5%). The prevalence was high in the group who were using open toilet (7.28%) than the sanitary latrine (5.15%). The results might facilitate the policy making and intervention aiming to reduce the rate of diarrhea and other diseases caused by parasitic infection especially in children. Large scale continuation of this study should be implemented to explore the overall status and risk factors associated with the parasitic diarrhea and malnutrition among children in Bangladesh.