The Health Impact of Intestinal Helminth Infections Among Podoconiosis Patients in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2011-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Intestinal helminth infections are most common diseases of the poor and a potential cause of
anemia in developing countries. Podoconiosis is a non-filarial “elephantiasis” of the lower legs in
farmers that work on loamy clay soil and is a chronic complication that does not have effective
treatment. Soil contact being the mode of transmission of geo-helminths and the cause of
podoconiosis, the aim of this study was to investigate the health impact of helminth infections on
podoconiosis patients in Wolaita Zone, southern Ethiopia. A total of 480 (384 podoconiosis
patients and 96 controls) study participants were enrolled in the study. The study showed an
overall prevalence of 57.8% helminth parasites among podoconiosis patients and 37.5% among
the controls. Out of the helminth positive podoconiosis patients, 3.9% had triple and more
infections, 12.8% double and 41.1% had single infections. Among the control study participants,
triple and more infections were rare (1%), whereas 7.3% double and 29.2% single infections
were detected. Shoe wearing in relation to hookworm infection among the podoconiosis patients
was assessed and most had no practice of appropriate shoe wearing. Hemoglobin (Hgb) and
Hematocrit determination techniques used to determine anemia showed mean Hgb value between
podoconiosis patients (12.85±1.69) and controls (14.71±1.69) to be significantly different
(P<0.05) showing that more podoconiosis patients were anemic. On the whole, anemia was twice
as likely among helminth-infected podoconiosis patients than their helminth-free counterparts.
Furthermore, hookworm-infected podoconiosis patients were 3.4 times more likely to be anemic
than hookworm infected non-podoconiosis individuals (P<0.05). Double helminth infections,
with hookworm included, further increased the risk of being anemic among podoconiosis
patients (OR=3.9, P=0.032, 95% CI=1.124, 13.523). On the other hand, the overall prevalence of
intestinal geo-helminth infection decreased with increasing clinical stages of podoconiosis,
implying that with severe and complicated podoconiosis, the individual would be seriously
incapacitated to work on the farm and hence will have a limited contact with soil to be exposed
to helminth infections. The study has provided good evidence to justify selective initiation of
deworming and iron rich nutrient supplementation to improve the wellbeing of podoconiosis
patients under resource poor conditions in Wolaita.
Key words: Podoconiosis, Helminths, Anemia, Hookworm, Wolaita
Description
Keywords
Podoconiosis,, Helminths,, Anemia, Hookworm, Wolaita