Prevalence of bilharzia in Zambia

Abstract

There has been a considerable accumulation of data in recent years enabling a more accurate assessment of the extent of bilharzia in Zambia than has been possible hitherto. The data fall into two groups. The first consists of the laboratory records of urine and stool examinations of the patients of some twenty-seven hospitals in the various provinces of the country. These have been collected with great diligence by Mr. Henderson (1969), Principal Health Inspector for the Ministry over a period of three years from 1966-8, and the total number of specimens comprised 309,000 of urine and 195,000 of faeces. The second consists of microscopic examination of urine specimens from normal population groups, comprising some 10,000 samples. Half of these were from school children and the remainder from various other sources - villages, normal pregnancy groups and normal adults from a prison and two factories. Some of the school studies have already been the subject of reports (Fine, Kitwe 1966; Bhagwandeen, Lusaka 1970). The others were communicated to me privately (Bakshi, Ndola schools 1972) or reported to the Ministry of Health (Mundia and Hashmi, Rufunsa School 1972).