Determinants of Hookworm Infestation among School Going Children: a Cross Sectional Study

Hookworm infestation is common in school going children especially in the developing countries like India. The WHO estimates that more than 2 billion population is infested with worm infection. Due to worm infestation, Disability adjusted life-years (DALYs) lost due to all causes in girls and boys are 12.3% and 11.4% respectively. The morbidity like malnutrition, anaemia, night blindness due to vitamin A deficiency and impaired cognition are higher among children those infected with hookworm infestation. The study was carried out in the rural block Beri (District Jhajjar, Haryana). A total of 200 students were enrolled i.e. 100 from each government primary school were included in the study. Screening for hookworm infection was carried out by taking samples of fingernail contents of both hands of each subject using sterile-moistened cotton-tipped swab of all those children who had untrimmed nails by a trained laboratory technician. The prevalence of hook worm ova was comes to be 31/155 (20%) subjects. The present study found out the risk factors for worm infestation among study subjects and found out that 87.5% subject wash their hand after defecation, 70% subjects had unclean hand, nearly three fourth (76.5%) subjects had untrimmed nails, 49% subjects said that they cleaned their hand before eating, 38.5% said that they defecate in the open field and 32.5% subjects had habit of eating food fallen on ground. Worm infestation is a global public health problem and is a matter of serious concern for the poor countries. Kattula et al., (2009) carried out a study on prevalence & risk factors for soil transmitted helminthes infection among school children in south India and they reported that there was a wide variation in the prevalence of helminthes infestation across various schools ranging from 0-20.4 per cent. Periodic deworming of schoolchildren as per National iron + initiative programmed, school teachers should be check nails of children once in a week, health education like personal cleanliness should be imparted to children and government health functionaries must visit the schools regularly for health check-up and health education.