Abstract:
Background: Worldwide, about 3.5 billion people are affected by intestinal parasitic infections, and the majority of them are children. Intestinal parasitosis is a major concern for public health, especially in children from middle and low-income populations of tropical & subtropical areas. Intestinal parasitic infection is still common in Ethiopia. Ethiopia, nearly one-third of school children are found to be infected by some sort of intestinal parasites. Periodic evaluation of the current status of human intestinal parasitic infections (HIPIs) is a prerequisite to controlling these health threats.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infection and associated factors among school children in Sheko Primary School, southwest Ethiopia.
Methods: A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 422 Sheko primary school children in Sheko town from May to June 2021. A Semi-structure and pre-tested questionnaire were used. Data was entered and analysed by using SPSS version 25.0 software after checking its completeness. It was processed by using descriptive analysis including frequency distribution, cross-tabulation, and summary measures. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression and odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to identify the associated factors with Intestinal parasite. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: The prevalence of Intestinal Parasite among Sheko primary school was 31.8%, (95% CI; 27.5-36.3). The likelihood of intestinal parasite was lower among female school children (AOR=0.60, 95% CI: 0.39-0.91) compared to male school children. Similarly, the odd of the intestinal parasite was lower among school children Wearing shoes regularly (AOR= 0.52, 95% CI: 0.28-0.97) than school children who didn’t wear shoes regularly.
In the current study, the likelihood of intestinal parasites was higher among school children their age lies between < 9 years (AOR= 3.77, 95% CI: 1.26-11.30) and 10- 14years (AOR= 4.60, 95% CI: 1.51-13.98) compared to school children their age is greater than 15 years. Similarly, the odd of the intestinal parasite was higher among school children didn’t wash their hand with soap regularly (AOR= 1.54, 95% CI: 0.93-2.54) than school children did wash their hand with soap regularly.
Conclusion: The finding implies that intestinal parasitic infections among elementary school children in Sheko woreda were prevalent. sex, age, wearing shoes and washing hand with soap were significantly associated with intestinal parasite infection
