Detecting Schistosoma haematobium infection by microscopy and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in school children in three senatorial districts of Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

As a result of the poor sensitivity and speci city of the standard parasitological diagnostic methods currently being used, this study was conducted to compare the standard parasitological diagnostic methods and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in determining the prevalence of urinary schistosomiasis in Cross River State (CRS). The study was conducted between April 2015 and March 2016. Seven hundred and seventy seven (777) urine samples were randomly collected from selected school-age children. The urine samples were subjected to standard parasitological and molecular examinations. Chisquare test was used to test the differences between the data on subgroups and the results from specimen examinations. An overall prevalence of 1.7% was recorded using microscopy and 34.7% recorded using PCR. The highest prevalence of infection by microscopy occurred in the Southern Senatorial District (2.3%), while the Northern Senatorial District recorded the highest prevalence of infection by PCR (53.2%) (p < 0.05). Males were more infected (2.4%) than females (0.6%) using microscopy. With PCR, males were also more infected (35.7%) compared to females (33.3%) (p < 0.05). The highest prevalence of infection using microscopy and PCR both occurred in school-age children aged 5-8 years (3.6% and 47.8% respectively), while the lowest prevalence for both methods occurred in participants aged 17-20 years (0% for both methods) (p < 0.05). This study has shown PCR to be effective in detecting schistosomiasis infection and also re-a rms the endemicity of urinary schistosomiasis in the three Senatorial Districts of CRS.

Review of Recent Prevalence of Urogenital Schistosomiasis in Sub-Saharan Africa and Diagnostic Challenges in the Field Setting

“…Every year, hundreds of articles are published on schistosomiasis. Table 2 summarizes the recently reported prevalence of UGS in SSA that was indexed in PubMed [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ,…”

“…As shown in Table 2 , most surveys screened SAC following WHO recommendations, which is a cost-effective approach and well reflects endemicity in the surveyed locality [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ,…”

“…In Nigeria, PCR showed a positive rate of 34.7% in the 777 subjects while UM yielded only a 1.7% positivity rate. This significant disparity between the two methods highlights the notable difference in diagnostic outcomes [ 97 ]. Sow et al (2023) [ 98 ] compared diagnostic values of qPCR for UGS, which produced a sensitivity of 98.9%, specificity of 81.8%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 58.1%, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 99.6%.…”

Foresight in the diagnosis of trematodiasis: innovations versus routine methods

“…В исследовании при сравнении со стандартными методами паразитологической диагностики ПЦР показывает значительное увеличение распространенности заболевания [67]. Так, в исследовании ПЦР позволила выявить на 13-15% больше случаев инвазии по сравнению с микроскопией [68]. C помощью усовершенствования методов экстракции ДНК из образцов чувствительность метода может достигать 100%.…”