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International Journal of HIV and AIDS research
International Conference on
&
Sexually Transmitted Diseases, AIDS and Parasitic Infections
Parasitology, Infectious Diseases, STDs and STIs
September 21-22, 2017 San Antonio, TX, USA
Impact of tungiasis on acquisition of basic education among children aged 5-14 years in
Murang’a County, Kenya
Josephine Ngunjiri, Walter Mwanda and Peter N Keiyoro
University of Nairobi, Kenya
Background: Millions of school age children all over the world are out of school due to various reasons which
range from disabilities caused by diseases, natural calamities, insecurity, and poor infrastructure to lack of basic
amenities. Tungiasis is a neglected disease that is caused by female Tungiasis flea, Tunga penetrans that embeds
on the hosts, epidermis. This study was carried out to determine Tungiasis prevalence among school age children
5-14 years and to relate the disease status to acquisition of basic education.
Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive research design in which 200 households were systematically
randomly selected from which a maximum of two children aged 5-14 years were recruited adding to a total of
384 children. Questionnaires, interview guide, observation check list and physical examination guide were used
to collect data. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 21 software. Correlations and regression tests,
Wald chi square test were carried out in addition to descriptive statistics.
Results: A total of 347 children aged between 5-14 years participated in the study from a sample of 384 children
drawn from 200 households. Prevalence of Tungiasis at household level was at 37% (74 households) while
among children the prevalence was at 44% (153), out of whom 63% (97) were male and 37% (56) were female.
It was shown that children who were younger aged below 11 years were vulnerable to tungiasis at p- value 0.048.
Family size and tungiasis status have a negative Pearson relationship -0.01. However the relationship is not
statistically significant (p–value 0.979). This study found that, children suffering from tungiasis were likely to
repeat same class even more than one time (p-value 0.007). Tungiasis status was found to influence the ability of
children to attend school at p-value 0.001.
Conclusion: Tungiasis is prevalent among the children aged between 5-14 years in endemic areas. Chronic
tungiasis that had lasted for more than 1 year was common among children. Severe tungiasis caused morbidity
among children, low rate of school attendance and caused high drop-out rates. Acquisition of basic education
can be improved by addressing and managing tungiasis which would improve school attendance, retention and
dropout rates.