A Study on Superficial Fungal Infection from West Bengal: A Brief Report

The present study attempts to find out the distribution of superficial fungal infection with respect to socio-economic and demographic variables among a symptomatic group (112 individuals) in West Bengal. Moreover, an attempt has also been made to find out the risk factors associated with the superficial fungal infection type. The results show that Tinea corporis is the most common infection type and the risk factors associated with this infection are age, occupational types, history of prior corporis infection and unexposed parts of the body. of studies have confirmed that tinea infection is related to the activity pattern, living condition and age groups (English et al. 1967; Mahapatra 1989; Rogers et al. 1996; Caputo et al. 2001; Vito et al. 2004). To the best of the knowledge of the authors, from the State of West Bengal, there is hardly any published literature on the epidemiological aspects of superficial fungal infection types. Thus, the present study attempts to examine the distribution of superficial fungal infection among a symptomatic group, with respect to sociocultural and demographic variables and the risk factors associated with superficial fungal infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS The present study has been conducted on a symptomatic group who visited the School of Tropical Medicine (STM), located in the city of Kolkata (West Bengal) for therapeutic purpose. This is the only medical hospital of this State which exclusively provides treatment for various types of tropical diseases. Moreover, this institute is a public enterprise, where treatment is offered at a cheap rate and the frequency of visit by the patients from all over the state is the highest. Selection of the Subjects Medical investigation was carried out on individuals who visited the ‘out patient department’ (OPD) of Dermatology of STM with complain of skin infection. Individuals, who were clinically diagnosed with superficial fungal Address for correspondence: Dr. Sukumar Basak, MD Professor and Head Department of Microbiology, School of Tropical Medicine, C.R Avenue, Kolkata 700 073 West Bengal, India Telephone: +91 9830409494 Fax: +91 3322414915 E-mail: [email protected] 52 KRISHNENDU DAS, SUKUMAR BASAK AND SUBHA RAY infection, have been referred to the Mycology Unit of Microbiology Department for proper etiological investigation. During the period of study, a total number of 112 such individuals were referred to this department for medical attention and they represent the universe of study. A well-tested questionnaire schedule has been designed to collect data on socio-demographic (age, sex, occupational types and family income), household condition and hygiene behaviour (number of family members, per capita sharing of room, sources of water, use of soap and wiping of body parts) and on infection types. The diagnosis of the infected individuals and of infection types have been done by one of the authors (SB). Microbiological investigation of infection type has been done following Chander (2002). Logistic regression has been done to find out the risk factors of tinea corporis infection. A number of sociodemographic features (educational level, household income, occupational types, household size, per capita space use, sex and religion), behavioural factors (regular use of soap, sharing of towels, frequency of bath/day, sources of water, carefully wiping of body parts) and other related variables (history of previous corporis infection, site of infection, duration of work per day and nature of work) have been used as independent variables in predicting the probability of getting corporis infection. In the table, only the significant predictor variables have been presented. The rest of the infection types have been excluded from the analysis since these are less in number. The entire analysis was done using “Statistical Package for Social Sciences” version 7.5 (SPSS Inc., Chicago IL, USA). Prior to the collection of data, the nature of research was explained to the participants and a verbal consent was taken from them. The study was conducted during the period February 2008 to July 2008.