Seasonal and environmental impacts of soil-transmitted helminth eggs in some selected pre-primary and primary school playground soils, Bwari Area Council, Abuja

Public health importance of STH infections ranks the highest in morbidity rate among school aged children who often present with heavy infections. This study was conducted in Bwari Area Council, Abuja FCT to determine the seasonal and environmental impacts of soil-transmitted helminth eggs in selected pre-primary and primary schools. A cross-sectional study design was carried out. Twenty schools were randomly selected from ten wards comprising of 10 each of private and public owned pre/primary schools. Fifty (50) grams of soil were collected from the randomly selected playgrounds, transported to the helminthology laboratory of Department of Veterinary Parasitology and Entomology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where floatation, direct smear and sedimentation techniques were used to recover helminth eggs. Overall, 6607 eggs were obtained from 400 soil samples collected out of which 4836 (62.5%) eggs were collected from both pre-primary and primary school's playground; Taeniids 1480(30.6%), Toxocara 883(18.2%), Hookworm 1260(26.1%), Trichuris 1130(23.4%), Strongyle 80(1.7%) and Schistosome haematobium eggs 3(0.1%) respectively beside which mite and coccidian eggs were also observed. The total number of geo-helminth eggs observed during the dry season was 1244(100%) while 3592(100%) helminth eggs were observed during the rainy season. There was a significant association between the occurrence of geo-helminth egg and season (χ2 = 203.1, P = 0.0001). There was no Significant association between the environmental factors and the pupils that had helminthic infection, (χ2 = 2.462, P = 0.296). School children should be encouraged not to play with contaminated soil and if they do should wash their hands immediately