Soil with Taenia eggs can cause health-related problems, mostly to people who come in with such soil either by playing with the soil or during recreational activity on the infested soil.
This research work studied 184 soil samples from 16 selected parks in Abuja to ascertain the population proportion of Taeniaeggs and other Helminthes eggs using zinc sulphate flotation medium with a specific gravity of 1.25.
Out of the 184 soil examined 49 samples were contaminated with Taenia eggs. A total of 12290 Taenia eggs were found in the 49 soil samples.
However, it was observed that no Taenia egg was found from the samples collected from Cortland Garden. This implies that the total Taenia eggs count were gotten from 15 recreational parks.
Millennium Park had the highest Taenia eggs count of 3640 (29.62%) followed by Jabi Lake Park with 2020 (16.44%) Taenia eggs, then Orbit Garden with 1800 (14.65%) Taeniaeggs and Wuse Market Park with 1200 (9.93%) Taenia eggs.
The other 11 recreational parks had Taenia eggs count of less than 900. The level of association between the prevalence rate of Taenia eggs in soil and soil pH was estimated using Pearson correlation analysis.
At 0.05level of significance, the association was weak and therefore not significant.
Also, the Cochran Q test was applied to determine if the population proportion of Taenia eggs is not significantly more prevalent than other geohelminth egg types in different soil textures and if the population proportion of all helminth egg types are the same for all parks locations.
Introduction
1.1 Background of Study
The cestode parasites of major economic and public health importance are members of the family Taeniidae, genera Taenia and Echinoccocus.
These parasites all have indirect life cycles involving a carnivorous or omnivorous definitive host, in which the adult stage develops in the small intestine and an intermediate host in which the larval (metacestode) form develops in the host tissues (Lightowlers, 1990).
Taeniasis is an accidental human infection acquired by the ingestion of raw beef/pork containing an intermediate form (Cysticercus) of Taeniasaginataand T.solium- respectively.Humans are the final hosts, for T. solium.
Auto infection is another route of infection for T.solium. Gravid proglottids are carried to the stomach by reverse peristalsis where the onchosphere become liberated and develops into the cysticercus.(WHO, 2009).
This means that humans can become infected with eggs spread by other humans and develop cysticerci in their tissue.
When humans ingest eggs, metacestodes develop within the muscle, under the skin, in the intestine, brain and spinal cord. The human to human transmission of disease results in most clinically serious forms of the disease.
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