A cost effective two step rapid diagnosis of urinary schistosomiasis in Zimbabwe.
Autor: | Ndamba J; Blair Research Laboratory, Harare, Zimbabwe., Makura O, Gwatirisa PR, Makaza N, Kaondera KC |
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Jazyk: | angličtina |
Zdroj: | The Central African journal of medicine [Cent Afr J Med] 1998 Jul; Vol. 44 (7), pp. 167-71. |
Abstrakt: | Objective: To assess the efficacy and applicability of questionnaires to determine schistosomiasis endemic areas in Zimbabwe. Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Makonde District, Zimbabwe. Subjects: Headmasters and children in Grades II to V of the 121 schools in the district. Main Outcome Measures: Number of completed questionnaires that were returned. Ranking of the most important diseases among the school children. Results: Completed questionnaires were received from 110 (90.9%) schools. Of the 110 headmasters, 55.4% ranked schistosomiasis < or = 4 as one of the priority diseases affecting their children most. In addition, 44.2% gave blood in urine < or = 4 as one of the most frequent symptoms among their school children while 63.6% wanted action to be taken to prevent schistosomiasis and/or blood in urine among the children. A total of 38.3% of the children from 37 schools admitted having suffered from schistosomiasis during the last month while 37.4% of the children from 35 schools claimed to have experienced blood in their urine during the same period of time. The teachers found a prevalence of 46.1% while the research team found that 44.9% children had blood in their urine. Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrated that the questionnaire approach, besides the high diagnostic power, was the cheapest, costing only US$0.08 per child and 18 times cheaper than the filtration technique. |
Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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