Abstract
Parasitologic surveys of young adults in college and university settings are not commonly done, even in areas known to be endemic for schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths. We have done a survey of 291 students and staff at the Kisumu National Polytechnic in Kisumu, Kenya, using the stool microscopy Kato-Katz (KK) method and the urine point-of-care circulating cathodic antigen (POC-CCA) test. Based on three stools/two KK slides each, in the 208 participants for whom three consecutive stools were obtained, Schistosoma mansoni prevalence was 17.8%. When all 291 individuals were analyzed based on the first stool, as done by the national neglected tropical disease (NTD) program, and one urine POC-CCA assay (n = 276), the prevalence was 13.7% by KK and 23.2% by POC-CCA. Based on three stools, 2.5% of 208 participants had heavy S. mansoni infections (≥400 eggs/gram feces), with heavy S. mansoni infections making up 13.5% of the S. mansoni cases. The prevalence of the soil-transmitted helminths (STH: Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura and hookworm) by three stools was 1.4%, 3.1%, and 4.1%, respectively, and by the first stool was 1.4%, 2.4% and 1.4%, respectively. This prevalence and intensity of infection with S. mansoni in a college setting warrants mass drug administration with praziquantel. This population of young adults is ‘in school’ and is both approachable and worthy of inclusion in national schistosomiasis control and elimination programs.
Highlights
The effort to control and eventually eliminate schistosomiasis has gained considerable momentum since the adoption of the World Health Assembly (WHA) Resolution 54.19 in 2001 [1] and WHAResolution 65.21 in 2012 [2]
This study demonstrates that a substantial number of young adults attending Kisumu National Polytechnic (KNP) harbor S. mansoni and soil-transmitted helminths (STH) infections
It is true that KNP is in western Kenya, along the shores of Lake Victoria, an area that is known to be highly endemic for S. mansoni, and while its students are drawn from across the country, a majority of the student body and this study group is from western Kenya
Summary
The effort to control and eventually eliminate schistosomiasis has gained considerable momentum since the adoption of the World Health Assembly (WHA) Resolution 54.19 in 2001 [1] and WHAResolution 65.21 in 2012 [2]. The need and advantage of extending MDA to students in secondary schools have been demonstrated recently [3], and we sought to determine if the same might be true in regard to young adults attending a technical college, Kisumu National Polytechnic (KNP) located in a schistosomiasis endemic area of western Kenya. Such students comprise a population that is associated with given institutions and could be incorporated into national ‘school-based’ preventive chemotherapy programs.
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