A comparison of intervention strategies to improve helminthiasis, nutrition and cognitive status among school-age children in helminth endemic farming and fishing areas in Ghana

To evaluate the impact of intervention strategies on helminthiasis, nutritional and cognitive status School-Age Children (SAC), we conducted a community trial with 4 arms; “Nutrition Education Only” (NutEd), “Supplementation (Suppl), Education+Supplementation” (NutEd+Suppl) versus ‘Non-intervention‘(Control) group. The was 358 SAC from 8 randomly selected schools (4 fishing farming communities) in Kwahu Afram Plains South District Ghana. Data were collected at baseline, third, sixth-month post-intervention. obtained through questionnaire, anthropometry, parasitology (faecal urine analysis), hemoglobin levels (Hb) whole blood zinc levels. Ravens Colored Progressive Matrices (RCPM) used for assessment. At overall helminthiasis prevalence 29.6%, which decreased to 6.3% 6th-month About 7.5% all children underweight, 11.2% stunted, 21.5% acutely malnourished, 46.1% anemic 31.4% deficient. These 5.3% (underweight), 8.5% (stunting), 9.8% (acute malnutrition), 16.1% (anemia) 9.3% (zinc deficiency), respectively, 15.6% passed test increased 32.4% “NutEd” treatment recorded most significantly improved bmi-for-age z-score (0.27 ± 0.88, p = 0.002), height-for-age (0.16 0.38, < 0.0001) anemia (Hb levels; 1.22 1.13 g/dL, 0.0001), “NutEd+Suppl” group highest improvement (46.39 22.30 µmol/L, “Suppl” performance (3.08 6.07, between baseline