Abstract
BackgroundTinea capitis is a common infection especially in poor resource settings. This study was aimed at determining the prevalence Tinea capitis in children from selected schools from an urban slum in Nairobi city of Kenya.MethodsA cross-sectional study was carried out in 150 school going children during the period between May and September 2013. A questionnaire was administered and cultures of scalps, skin scrapping/hair stubs samples were performed and the etiological agents identified and confirmed.ResultsIn a total of one hundred and fifty (150) children recruited 89 (59.3%) were males and 61 (40.7%) females aged between 3 and 14 years. The overall prevalence rates in dermatophytes infection was 81.3% (122/150) with etiological agents consisting Trichophyton spp. (61.3%), Microsporum spp. (13.3%) and Epidermophyton spp. (7.3%) infections with infections occurring either singly (56%), duo (38%) or tipple co-infections (6%).ConclusionThis study demonstrates a high prevalence of Tinea infections with Trichophyton tonsurans as the predominant etiological agent in school going children of the urban slums of Nairobi.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1240-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Tinea capitis is a common infection especially in poor resource settings
Income of most of the parents was below Ksh 5,000 (54.7%) with least of them earning above Ksh. 20,000 (0.7%). With most of these children coming from poor settings, most of them 138/150 (92%) confirmed shairing items especially bath towels
Low economic status and unemployment were found to be highly associated with high risk to tinea infections (P > 0.001) (Additional file 1: Table S1)
Summary
Tinea capitis is a common infection especially in poor resource settings. This study was aimed at determining the prevalence Tinea capitis in children from selected schools from an urban slum in Nairobi city of Kenya. Tinea capitis is a common superficial fungal infection of the scalp and hair [1, 2]. The infection originates from diverse sources (human, animals and/or soil) [3] with high frequency occurring in prepubertal, school-going children aged between 6 and 10 years of age. This infection occurs across age and sex groups with high occurrence being reported among males [3,4,5,6]. Its prevalence has continued to have a dramatic increase in the last decades with more than 20–25% of the world’s population being affected [11]
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