Occurrence of communicable diseases and their risk factors among the female inhabitants of lower socioeconomic groups in Dhaka city

Abstract

Identification of the type of most common communicable diseases and prevalence of each disease was observed among the female inhabitants of lower socioeconomic groups in Dhaka city. A total of 900 female inhabitants were examined during Sep 2013 to Aug 2015, prevalence of gastrointestinal parasitic infestation was 66.22% and 26 parasite species were identified. Prevalence of nematoda was the highest (57.55%), then cestode (38.67%), protozoa (19.22%) and lowest was found in trematode (4.11%). Entamoeba histolytica (10.44%) indicates severe faecal contamination among protozoan parasites, while in cestodes Hymenolopis nana (22.78%), in trematodes Fasciolopsis buski (2.11%) and in nematodes Ascaris lumbricoides (38%) were highly prevalent. In twelve study areas, the highest prevalence was found in Kamrangichar (87.5%). The peak prevalence (82.5%) of infection was observed in rainy season. Double and triple parasitic infection was higher than that of single infection. Children of age group 1-15 years (75.65%) were mostly affected by intestinal parasite. The overall prevalence of anaemia was 42.22%. Anaemia was significantly higher (49.6%) in 16-30 years of adult group and severe anaemic cases also found within the same age group. Comparatively higher percentage was found in anaemic and parasite positive cases (70.53%) than non anaemic parasite positive cases (63.08%) that prove that parasitic infestation is one of the main reasons for anaemia. The prevalence of Urinary tract infection was 31.44% and the highest prevalence of urinary tract infection was observed among adult age group (46.8%). Therefore, female from adult age group were vulnerable to many diseases. Comparatively higher UTIs cases were found in rainy seasons (40.31%). The percentage of E. coli was found highest (65.72%) for causing UTIs. Among 900 female inhabitants, 41.33% were infected with different types of skin diseases; within these, bacteria (45.16%), fungal (26.07%), viral (19.35%) and arthropod (9.41%) infections were found. Among them, the highest 54.28% were infected by scabies and 38.09% were affected by boil disease. The highest prevalence of skin diseases was observed among the adult age group. The prevalence of vector-borne diseases was 49.33%, among them four types of diseases were recorded which are malaria (2%), filaria (7.33%), dengue (34.67%) and leishmaniasis (5.33%). Dengue (64.25%) and malaria (4.66%) infection was found highest among the children while filaria (12.18%) and leishmaniasis (8.12%) found in middle age group. Four types of waterborne diseases were found such as cholera/ diarrhoea (28%), typhoid (17.11%), polio (5.11%) and hepatitis A/ Jaundice (9.67%); and overall prevalence was 59.87%. Regarding the airborne diseases, 58.44% were found to be infected, among them four types recorded, such as influenza (25.11%), mumps (10.22%), pneumonia (17.44%) and tuberculosis (5.67%). The major proportion of the waterborne infections (71.50%) and airborne infections (69.43%) were found in children group. The main source of disease transmission may be associated with socioeconomic condition, sanitation and personal hygiene, so these sources were considered to be risk factors. Risk factors and socioeconomic aspects of the female inhabitants in relation to parasitic, skin, vector-borne, waterborne and airborne diseases were also calculated.