Abstract:
Intestinal protozoan and soil transmitted helminths infections are among the common
leading causes of death worldwide. In developing countries intestinal protozoan and soil
transmitted helminths infections are the major health problems where mostly pre-school
and school age children are affected and the majority of these cases occur in sub-saharan
African countries.The main objective of the present study was to determine the prevalence o
f intestinal protozoan and soil transmitted helminths infections and their associations with
anthropometric measurements of school children of Oda Belina and Ethiopia Tekdem
Primary Schools of Hirna town. A school based cross-sectional study was conducted at
Hirna town from April-June, 2017. A total of 384 study participants were selected from
grade 1-8 children of the two schools using, stratified, random sampling method. The stool
samples taken from the study participants were examined using direct wet mount, FormolEther
Concentration and Zeihl-neelson methods. Out of the total 384 study participants,
45(11.7%) were infected with Intestinal protozoan and 67 (17.5%) were infected with soiltransmitted
helminths. Of these, 11.2% and 12.3% were prevalence of protozoan parasites
in males and females, respectively. while, the overall prevalence rate of soil-transmitted
helminths parasites was 17.5%. Of these, 18.8% and 16.04% were for males and females,
respectively. The prevalence of intestinal protozoan parasites was 7.6%, 3.7% and 0.5%
for Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium species, respectively. On
the other hand, the prevalence of intestinal helminth parasite infections was 6.8%, and
8.9%, 1.6%, for Ascaris lumbricoides, hookworms, Trichuris trichiura, respectively. Somerisk factors, such as family size and washing hands before meal and after toilet with soap
were statistically associated with the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections (p
0.05). The prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight for children of 6-9 years was
22(17.3%), 27 (21.3%) and 31(24.4%), respectively. But, for the10-18years age group, the
prevalence of underweight was 37.0 %. Generally, the prevalence of intestinal parasitic
infection was high among school-children of Hirna town. The local health sector should
collaborate with schools to deliver health education to raise awareness, knowledge,
attitude and practice of school children towards the transmission and prevention of intestin
al parasitic infections through provision of community based health education, mass de-wo
rming program, improvement of personal hygiene and environmental sanitation.
