(Press-News.org) Promotion of handwashing with soap and weekly nail clipping are both successful strategies to decrease intestinal parasite re-infection rates in school aged Ethiopian children, according to a study published by Mahmud Abdulkader Mahmud and colleagues from Mekelle University, Ethiopia, in this week's PLOS Medicine.
The researchers reached these conclusions by conducting a cluster randomized controlled trial in which 367 parasite-negative school-aged children in Northern Ethiopia were randomly assigned to either the handwashing intervention, the nail clipping intervention, both interventions, or neither intervention for 6 months. For the handwashing intervention, fieldworkers visited each intervention household weekly, encouraged all the household members to wash their hands with water and soap at key times such as before meals and after defecation, and checked on the household's use of soap. For the nail clipping intervention, the fieldworkers clipped the nails of children in the intervention groups every week.
After adjustment for factors likely to affect re-infection such as latrine use and drinking water source, 14% of the children in the handwashing with soap groups (handwashing alone and handwashing plus nail clipping) were re-infected with parasites compared to 29% of the children in the no handwashing groups (nail clipping only or neither intervention). Similarly, 17% of the children in the nail clipping groups were re-infected compared to 26% in the no nail clipping groups. Finally, handwashing (but not nail clipping) significantly reduced the rate of anemia among the children.
These findings support the implementation of proper handwashing and weekly nail clipping as a public health measure to reduce parasite re-infection rates in resource-limited regions. However, although both interventions were effective under trial conditions that included intensive monitoring and follow up, it is not clear if handwashing and nail clipping will work as well under real-life conditions.
INFORMATION:
Research Article
Funding: The study was funded by Mekelle University, Ethiopia and Alcala University, Madrid, Spain . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Mahmud MA, Spigt M, Bezabih AM, Pavon IL, Dinant G-J, Velasco RB (2015) Efficacy of Handwashing with Soap and Nail Clipping on Intestinal Parasitic Infections in School-Aged Children: A Factorial Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. PLoS Med 12(6): e1001837. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001837
Author Affiliations:
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia
Department of Family Medicine, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
Department of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia
Catalan Institute of Health, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Spain
Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Alcala University, Madrid, Spain
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001837
Contact:
Mahmud Abdulkader Mahmud
Mekelle University
Biomedical Sciences
Ayder
Mekelle, 1871
ETHIOPIA
muheab2008@yahoo.com
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