Associations between intestinal parasitic infections, anaemia, and diarrhoea among school aged children, and the impact of hand-washing and nail clipping.

OBJECTIVE In marginalized setting, under-nutrition and illnesses due to infectious agents create a vicious circle. In our previous study, we reported that easy-to-do hand hygiene interventions were effective in preventing intestinal parasite infections (IPIs) and reduce the rate of anaemia among school-aged children. The aim of this study was to assess the pattern of associations between IPIs, anaemia and diarrhoea among the school-aged children and to explore if the observed impact of hand-washing and nail clipping interventions in our findings was similar across children with different baseline demographic and disease characteristics. The study was based on the analysis of data that was collected during the randomized controlled trial and hence have used the same study participants and study area. RESULTS Children with IPIs had a much higher chance of also being anaemic (AOR 2.09, 95% CI 1.15-3.80), having diarrhoea (AOR 2.83, 95% CI 1.57-5.09), and vice versa. Anaemia and diarrhoea were very strongly related (AOR 9.62, 95% CI 5.18-17.85). Overall, hand-washing with soap at key times and weekly nail clipping were efficacious in preventing intestinal parasite re-infection among children despite the differences in baseline demographic characteristics. TRIAL REGISTRATION NCT01619254 (June 09/2012).