Reported Diarrheal Cases among Patients, Including Those Having HIV/AIDS, Visiting Kamash Health Centre Between
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Date
2017-08
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Diarrheal diseases are physiological abnormalities of the gastrointestinal tract caused mostly by invasion of harmful bacteria, parasites, viruses, with common symptom of episodes of watery stool. They are more rampant in poor developing countries like Ethiopia that lack clean water supply and proper sanitation facilities. The infections have been aggravated with HIV co-infection. For many years now, there have been different efforts worldwide to reduce poverty with packages of primary health care, improved sanitation and supply of clean water enshrined in the recent Millennium Development Plan. Accordingly, Ethiopia has been beneficiary of such programs to improve health care of the population and reduce diseases including diarrhea. There are different reports in the country that showed improvement in the reduction of diarrheal diseases. However, there is limited information about the status of diarrhea in Kamash Town. To this end, a retrospective survey was conducted from secondary data collected from outpatients visiting Kamash Health Centre from 2011-2015 to determine the reported cases of diarrheal diseases and HIV co-infection. Accordingly, 27.8% of the outpatients were diagnosed for diarrheal disease. Although fewer males visited the Health Centre in all years, the prevalence of diarrhea was slightly higher in males (30.8%) than in females (25.5%) showing males were more vulnerable to diarrhea than females (1.2:1). The highly infected patients were found in the 6-15 years age group with prevalence of 24.4%, followed by 20.1% infection in the age group of ≥ 46. The lowest prevalence of 5.9% was recorded from the age group of ≤5. Among the associated factors of the diarrheal diseases E, histolytica /dispar/ contributed to 50% of all infections followed by Giardia lamblia, helminthes and other unidentified causative agents implicated with 27.7%, 16.5% and 5.6% of the diseases, respectively. The diarrheal diseases, in general, showed different pattern along seasons with the highest prevalence of 29.4% in June-August, and the lowest prevalence of 20.6% in September-November seasons, respectively. However, the parasites showed different pattern where E histolytica was high in the June-August seasons whereas the highest G lamblia infections were recorded in December-February seasons; not the least the highest helminthes and other infections were recorded from the months between March and May. The prevalence of HIV co-infection was in the range of 13.9% in 2011 to that of 17.6% in 2015 with the overall mean infection of 16.3%. The data showed a steady increase of co-infection with time. The male to female diarrheal infection was 1.2:1; and in similar way the male to female HIV co-infection was even higher 2.1:1 where males were more infected than females. The co infection showed a steady increase over the years, but the maleto female infection equally leveled in 2014 and 2015. The data generally indicates that there was no improvement in diarrheal infection as a function of time in the area.
Keywords: diarrhea; prevalence; infection; retrospective; E histolytica; G lamblia
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Keywords
diarrhea, prevalence, infection, retrospective, E histolytica, G lamblia