Environmental and personal risk factors for toxocariasis in children with diagnosed disease in urban and rural areas of central Poland

Abstract

To investigate the epidemiology of human toxocariasis a field survey was carried out at homes of 194 children (80 of rural and 114 of urban origin) with diagnosed disease from central Poland. A questionnaire referring to the possible risk factors was directed to their parents. Overall contamination rate of soil by Toxocara eggs was 27.5% in rural and 21.1% in urban environment in the households examined, with difference not significant (chi2=1.08, p=0.2986). In rural settlements 29.3% of yards surrounding houses were found contaminated, whereas in urban 25.0% of family gardens, 26.4% of private yards and 10.7% of public sandpits were positive. Frequency of positive samples differs only for rural yards and urban sandpits (chi2=3.85, p=0.0499). The study showed a high risk of reinfection for the ill children in sites of their residence. Despite diagnosed toxocariasis kids were not adequately supervised by their parents with no measures undertaken to avoid further infection. These data present strong need for educational programs which should be implemented for prevention of Toxocara infections in children.