Prevalence of Intestinal Parasites among Patients Accessing care in Secondary and Tertiary Healthcare Institutions in Edo State, Nigeria |Biomedgrid

Intestinal parasitic infections are prevalent in developing countries and are of great public health concern. This study aims to compare the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections among patients seeking care in secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities in Edo State, Nigeria. A total of 576 patients with gastrointestinal complaints and accessing healthcare in secondary (420) and tertiary healthcare (156) facilities in Edo State, Nigeria were recruited for this study. Stool specimens were collected and processed using formol-ether concentration method. Although intestinal parasitic infections were only detected among patients seeking care in the secondary health facility, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections among patients seeking care in secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities (1.90% vs 0.00%; p=0.7203). Age, gender and whether the patients had diarrhoea had no significant impact on the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections (p> 0.05). Entamoeba histolytica, Ascaris lumbricoides and hookworm were the parasites detected with hookworm been the most prevalent. Overall, a prevalence of 1.39% of intestinal parasitic infections was observed in this study and the parasites were only recovered from patients accessing care in a secondary healthcare facility.