Impact of mass Ivermectin administration and vector control on the prevalence of onchocerciasis in Kanyege Community, Masindi District

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to assess the impact of the duo intervention of mass Ivermectin administration and vector control on the prevalence of onchocerciasis among participants aged five years and above in Kanyege community, Masindi district. Specific objectives were to establish the Onchocerca nodular prevalence, microfilaria prevalence and community microfilaria load among persons aged five years and above. This study adopted a population-based descriptive cross sectional design accompanied by data collection and analysis. The studied sample size was 211 calculated using the Yamane (1967) formula. The study variables were age, sex, presence of nodules and prevalence for microfilaria. Results for 180 respondents were randomly selected from the pool of 211 people that were examined and compared with the already available baseline data. Double data entry was initially conducted in Microsoft Excel and data was exported to SPSS to perform a t-test analysis and a p-value of 0.05 was considered to be significant. Results indicated that study participants constituted an equal number of both sexes (90 people from each sex) as opposed to 46.1% (83/180) and 53.9% (97/180) who were male and female participants respectively at baseline. The study revealed that microfilaria prevalence and Community Microfilaria Load (CMFL) were 2.8% (5/180) and 0.02 as compared to 82.2% (148/180) and 48.2 at baseline in 2007, respectively. Overall, Onchocerciasis nodule prevalence among study participants was 0.6% (n=180) compared to 51.7% (n=180) at baseline in 2007. The study revealed a nodule prevalence of 1.1% (n=91) among males and 0% (n=89) in females as compared to 50.6% (n=83) and 52.6% (n=97) respectively, at baseline. These results suggest that the nine years of duo intervention using semi-annual mass treatment with Ivermectin combined with Simulium vector control has reduced the prevalence of onchocerciasis in Kanyege community.