Prevalence of intestinal protozoan parasites among school children in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction Parasitic infections, especially intestinal protozoan parasites (IPPs) remain a significant public health issue in Africa, where many conditions favour the transmission and children are the primary victims. This systematic review and meta-analysis was carried out with the objective of assessing the prevalence of IPPs among school children in Africa. Methods Relevant studies published between January 2000 and December 2020 were identified by systematic online search on PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and Scopus databases without language restriction. Pooled prevalence was estimated using a random-effects model. Heterogeneity of studies were assessed using Cochrane Q test and I2 test, while publication bias was evaluated using Egger’s test. Results Of the 1,645 articles identified through our searches, 46 cross-sectional studies matched our inclusion criteria, reported data from 29,968 school children of Africa. The pooled prevalence of intestinal protozoan parasites amongst African school children was 25.8% (95% CI: 21.2%-30.3%) with E. histolytica/ dispar (13.3%; 95% CI: 10.9%-15.9%) and Giardia spp. (12%; 95% CI: 9.8%-14.3%) were the most predominant pathogenic parasites amongst the study participants. While E. coli was the most common non-pathogenic protozoa (17.1%; 95% CI: 10.9%-23.2%). Conclusions This study revealed a relatively high prevalence of IPPs in school children, especially in northern and western Africa. Thus, poverty reduction, improvement of sanitation and hygiene and attention to preventive control measures will be the key to reducing protozoan parasite transmission.

Citation

Hajissa K, Islam MA, Sanyang AM, Mohamed Z (2022) Prevalence of intestinal protozoan parasites among school children in africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 16(2): e0009971. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009971

PubMed ID

35148325 (pubmed)

Additional Links

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009971

Type

Journal article

Language

en

Description

© 2022 The Authors. Published by PLoS. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009971

ISSN

1935-2735

EISSN

1935-2735

Rights

Licence for published version: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

cb

Collections

Faculty of Science and Engineering