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Ascariasis and childhood malnutrition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2009

Thein Hlaing
Thein Hlaing
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Research, Ministry of Health, Yangon 11191, Myanmar
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Summary

The present review will examine epidemiological perspectives and be confined mainly to the results of those field studies published since 1975 in order to provide concrete scientific evidence of the effect of ascariasis on childhood malnutrition, particularly on growth. The field studies were done in many developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America, using cross-sectional and intervention studies in which anthelmintics were employed, with different dosing frequency and follow-up periods ranging from 33 days to 2 years. In general, a better nutritional status in terms of growth, lactose tolerance, vitamins A and C, and albumin levels were observed among Ascaris–free or treated than among Ascaris–infected or untreated children even in cross-sectional or non-randomized studies. More importantly, the improvement in weight or height after chemotherapeutic treatment was found to be significant particularly in those randomized controlled studies with an initially high prevalence of ascariasis and malnutrition, a low prevalence of other intestinal parasites, repetitive and regular treatments of children with tetramisole, levamisole or pyrantel, within a period of 12 or 24 months. Reasons for failures to detect improved growth in some studies are provided. This review strongly indicates that A. lumbricoides infection definitely retards childhood growth.

Keywords

Ascariasiscross-sectional studiesintervention studiesanthelminticsnutritional status
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 107 , supplement S1: Human nutrition and parasitic infection , January 1993 , pp. S125 - S136
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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