Prevalence And Intensity Of The Common Parasitic Infections And Anaemia In Street Children Compaired To School Going Children In Kisumu City, Kenya.

ABSTRACT

Street children are exposed to environmental, socioeconomic and behavioural factors that increase risk of parasitic infections and are excluded from disease control programmes. The prevalence and intensity of parasitic infections as well as the link between the parasitic infections and anaemia status of these children is not known. Epidemiologic information on parasitic infection among street children in Kenya is required for developing appropriate control programs. This was a comparative cross-sectional study that aimed to determine differences in prevalence and intensity of the common parasitic infections and level of anaemia between street children and age matched school going children, in Kisumu city, Kenya. Stool and blood samples were collected from 132 purposively sampled children below 18 years of age who lived in the streets of Kisumu and were age matched to randomly selected 132 school going children of Manyatta primary school, Kisumu. Stool samples were examined for intestinal parasitic infections using Kato-Katz. Blood samples were examined for malaria by microscopy and parasite densities was estimated in giemsa-stained thick blood films. Significant differences in the prevalence of parasitic infections between street and school going children were determined using Chi-square test. Significant differences in intensities of parasitic infections and anaemia between street children and school going children was determined using Mann Whitney test. Odds ratio was calculated to determine the strength of associations between parasitic infection and study residence site. All tests were two-tailed and P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The prevalence of hookworm, S.mansoni, and Plasmodium falciparum malaria were significantly higher in street children than school going children (χ2=6.652, df=1, P= 0.019; χ2=66.027, df=1, P