Decreasing prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections among school-aged children in Nepal: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
In the last two decades there have been several studies describing the prevalence of intestinal parasites in Nepal; however, there is a lack of surveillance data in the country.



We searched literature in PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar and local peer-reviewed journals published from 1990 to 2015 for studies describing prevalence of intestinal parasites among school-aged children. We conducted meta-regression to understand the trend over time and pooled the prevalence using 'metaprop' command in STATA 12.1.



Thirty-one studies examining 12 080 fecal specimens were included. The prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections showed a significantly decreasing trend (OR 0.56; 95% CI 0.43-0.73 for each consecutive 5 years) and was similar in males and females. The pooled prevalence in years 1996-2000, 2001-2005, 2006-2010 and 2011-2015 was 61.1% (95% CI 51.47-70.26), 53.2% (95% CI 20.94-83.99), 32.7% (95% CI 26.57-39.21) and 20.4% (95% CI 15.04-26.25), respectively. The proportion of helminths among total intestinal parasites was higher in rural areas 57.6% (95% CI 43.54-71.61), and proportion of protozoa among total intestinal parasites was higher in urban areas 68.4% (95% CI 63.23-73.62). Poly-parasitism was observed in 7.7% (95% CI 5.57-9.73) of children.



We observed a significantly decreasing trend in prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections among school-aged children in Nepal over the last two decades.
School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia.
Ritu
R
Kunwar
Kathmandu Medical College, Kathmandu University, Nepal.
Lokendra
L
Acharya
School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia surendra.karki@gmail.com.
Surendra
S
Karki
D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health / Q000639:trends*; D005243:Feces; D005260:Female; D006376:Helminths; D006801:Humans; D007411:Intestinal Diseases, Parasitic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D007422:Intestines / Q000469:parasitology*; D008297:Male; D009390:Nepal / Q000453:epidemiology; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015995:Prevalence; D012424:Rural Population; D014505:Urban Population
Helminth; Intestinal parasite; Nepal; Prevalence; Protozoa; Trend