Nutritional Status of Intestinal Helminth Infested Versus Non Helminth Infested New Primary School Entrants In Egor Local Government Area of Edo State of Nigeria

Blessing O. Okperi¹, Angela A. Okolo² and BlaIse Ebiringa Anyanwu³

¹Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health Sciences, Delta State University, P.O.Box 1737, Effurun, Delta State Nigeria.

²Department of Child Health, College of Medical Sciences, University of Benin, Benin City Nigeria.

³Blaise Ebiringa Anyanwu Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health Sciences, Delta State University Delta State Nigeria.

Corresponding Author E-mail: ofejiro@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: The nutritional status indicated by weight,height and body mass index of two hundred and seventy five new primary school entrants (NPSE) randomly selected from one private and ten public prmary schools in Egor local government area (LGA) were studied comparing the helminth infested with the non helminth infested comparison group.The prevalence of intestinal helminth was 34.2%. Ascaris lumbricoides (AL) was the predominant helminth (24.4%) followed by the hookworms (HK) (Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale) making up 1.8%. Tricuris tricuria (TT) was 0.7% and 7.3% had poly parasitism.. There was also no significant difference between the mean weight,height and body mass index (BMI) of infested and non infested NPSE.

KEYWORDS: Intestinal helminths; Nutritional status; New primary school entrants (NPSE)

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