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The impact of anthelmintic treatment intervention on malaria infection and anaemia in school and preschool children in Magu district, Tanzania: an open label randomised intervention trial

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Infectious Diseases, March 2015
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Title
The impact of anthelmintic treatment intervention on malaria infection and anaemia in school and preschool children in Magu district, Tanzania: an open label randomised intervention trial
Published in
BMC Infectious Diseases, March 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12879-015-0864-5
Pubmed ID
Authors

Safari M Kinung’hi, Pascal Magnussen, Coleman Kishamawe, Jim Todd, Birgitte J Vennervald

Abstract

Some studies have suggested that helminth infections increase the risk of malaria infection and are associated with increased number of malaria attacks and anaemia. Thus interventions to control helminth infections may have an impact on incidence of clinical malaria and anaemia. The current study assessed the impact of two anthelmintic treatment approaches on malaria infection and on anaemia in school and pre-school children in Magu district, Tanzania. A total of 765 children were enrolled into a prospective randomized anthelmintic intervention trial following a baseline study of 1546 children. Enrolled children were randomized to receive either repeated treatment with praziquantel and albendazole four times a year (intervention group, 394 children) or single dose treatment with praziquantel and albendazole once a year (control group, 371 children). Follow up examinations were conducted at 12 and 24 months after baseline to assess the impact of the intervention. Stool and urine samples were collected and examined for schistosome and soil transmitted helminth infections. Blood samples were also collected and examined for malaria parasites and haemoglobin concentrations. Monitoring of clinical malaria attacks was performed at each school during the two years of the intervention. Out of 1546 children screened for P. falciparum, S. mansoni, S. haematobium, hookworm and T. Trichiura at baseline, 1079 (69.8%) were infected with at least one of the four parasites. There was no significant difference in malaria infection (prevalence, parasite density and frequency of malaria attacks) and in the prevalence of anaemia between the repeated and single dose anthelmintic treatment groups at 12 and 24 months follow up (p > 0.05). However, overall, there was significant improvement in mean haemoglobin concentrations (p < 0.001) from baseline levels of 122.0g/L and 123.0g/L to 136.0g/L and 136.8g/L for the repeated and single dose treatment groups, respectively, at 24 months follow-up which resulted in significant reduction in prevalence of anaemia. These results suggest that repeated anthelmintic treatment did not have an impact on malaria infection compared to single dose treatment. However, both treatment approaches had overall impact in terms of improvements of haemoglobin levels and hence reductions in prevalence of anaemia.

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Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 117 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Indonesia 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Denmark 1 <1%
Unknown 114 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 22 19%
Researcher 20 17%
Student > Master 20 17%
Student > Ph. D. Student 12 10%
Lecturer 5 4%
Other 21 18%
Unknown 17 15%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 42 36%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 11 9%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 8 7%
Social Sciences 8 7%
Nursing and Health Professions 7 6%
Other 22 19%
Unknown 19 16%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 March 2015.
All research outputs
#18,403,994
of 22,796,179 outputs
Outputs from BMC Infectious Diseases
#5,598
of 7,674 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#192,256
of 262,958 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Infectious Diseases
#106
of 155 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,796,179 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 11th percentile – i.e., 11% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
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