Prevalence of Dicrocoelium dendriticum ova in Ghanaian school children
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Dear Editor, Dicrocoelium dendriticum ova have been detected in human stool throughout the world. The life cycle of this trematode involves both snails and ants as intermediate hosts, and a definitive mammalian host who must ingest ants to become infected. Dicrocoeliumdendriticum infection in humans is difficult to ascertain despite detecting ova in stool, as this may represent either a true infection or possibly a ‘pseudo-infection’ following ingestion of the liver of an infected host, typically cow. Two species predominate, D. dendriticum and Dicrocoelium hospes; however there is limited prevalence data for these organisms worldwide. Here we report the prevalence of D. dendriticum ova in the stool of Ghanaian school children as part of a school-based epidemiologic survey for schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminth infections. From December 2013 to February 2014, 418 school-aged children provided two fresh stool specimens from four schools in the towns of Effiduase, Asokore, Ahinsan and Senchi in the Sekyere East district of the Ashanti region of Ghana. The stool specimens were evaluated for intestinal helminth infection by conventional light microscopy. In all, 174 males and 244 females participated in the study with a mean age of 10.4 years. Dicrocoeliumdendriticum ova were detected in eight individuals, for a prevalence of 1.91% (Table 1). All children infected with intestinal helminths were treated with albendazole and praziquantel as per regional health protocols. Prevalence of Dicrocoelium dendriticum ova detected in stool of Ghanaian school children by age and sex Prevalence of Dicrocoelium dendriticum ova detected in stool of Ghanaian school children by age and sex Dicrocoelium species have been detected in humans in Ghana before. Wolfe described five pseudo-infections with D. hospes in hospitalized patients consuming infected beef liver served by their facility [1]. More recently, a cross-sectional survey of young children in Kumasi conducted to evaluate the etiology of anemia detected 2.0% of 197 children with D. dendriticum in stool samples [2]. Elsewhere in Africa, D. dendriticum was detected in 0.2% of 480 Rwandan children who provided stool samples to determine risk factors for vernal keratoconjunctivitis [3]. While most cases likely reflect pseudo-infection [4], the prevalence of true D. dendriticum infection is unknown, as a proper diagnosis requires repeated stool examinations in the context of a liver-free diet [5]. The ecology, diet and animal husbandry practices in Ghana are suitable for both real and pseudo-infections, and future studies should determine the true prevalence of this organism and evaluate its clinical implications. Grand Challenges Canada (to I.I.B.)
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".