A cost effective two step rapid diagnosis of urinary schistosomiasis in Zimbabwe.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the efficacy and applicability of questionnaires to determine schistosomiasis endemic areas in Zimbabwe.

DESIGN

Cross sectional study.

SETTING

Makonde District, Zimbabwe.

SUBJECTS

Headmasters and children in Grades II to V of the 121 schools in the district.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Number of completed questionnaires that were returned. Ranking of the most important diseases among the school children.

RESULTS

Completed questionnaires were received from 110 (90.9%) schools. Of the 110 headmasters, 55.4% ranked schistosomiasis < or = 4 as one of the priority diseases affecting their children most. In addition, 44.2% gave blood in urine < or = 4 as one of the most frequent symptoms among their school children while 63.6% wanted action to be taken to prevent schistosomiasis and/or blood in urine among the children. A total of 38.3% of the children from 37 schools admitted having suffered from schistosomiasis during the last month while 37.4% of the children from 35 schools claimed to have experienced blood in their urine during the same period of time. The teachers found a prevalence of 46.1% while the research team found that 44.9% children had blood in their urine.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study demonstrated that the questionnaire approach, besides the high diagnostic power, was the cheapest, costing only US$0.08 per child and 18 times cheaper than the filtration technique.