Morbidity of schistosomiasis in relation to family construction [environment] among school children in an Egyptian rural community

ABSTRACT

Schistosomiasis is an endemic disease of high prevalence rate in the most rural areas [communities] in developing countries. This work is aiming to know the magnitude of this problem, its relation to family construction [environment] and the effect of mass treatment. For that, a cross-sectional study was done on a sample of [2800] school children aging 6-18 years in an Egyptian village. All of them were examined for S. haematobium and only 1000 for S. Mansoni. The results denoted that the prevalence rate of S. haematobium, S. Mansoni and mixed infection were 1.6%, 4.9% and 0.8% respectively. The prevalence rate of S.haematobium was not affected by sex of the pupils, level of education of their fathers and mothers [parents], occupation of their fathers, family size, no. of housing room, source of water supply, type of family and presence of animals inside the house. The prevalence of S. Mansoni was affected by age of pupils, no. of housing rooms, presence of bathrooms and sharing their fathers in agriculture. The curative rate by praziquentel was 95.6%, it is recommended that, upgrading of socioeconomic standards of rural families, continuous medical surveys on rural population and reevaluation after health education and mass treatment by praziquentel