Can chemotherapy alone eliminate the transmission of soil transmitted helminths?

Truscott, James E, Hollingsworth, Deirdre, Brooker, Simon J and Anderson, Roy M (2014) 'Can chemotherapy alone eliminate the transmission of soil transmitted helminths?'. Parasites & Vectors, Vol 7, e266.

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Abstract

Background

Amongst the world’s poorest populations, availability of anthelmintic treatments for the control of soil transmitted helminths (STH) by mass or targeted chemotherapy has increased dramatically in recent years. However, the design of community based treatment programmes to achieve the greatest impact on transmission is still open to debate. Questions include: who should be treated, how often should they be treated, how long should treatment be continued for?

Methods

Simulation and analysis of a dynamic transmission model and novel data analyses suggest refinements of the World Health Organization guidelines for the community based treatment of STH.

Results

This analysis shows that treatment levels and frequency must be much higher, and the breadth of coverage across age classes broader than is typically the current practice, if transmission is to be interrupted by mass chemotherapy alone.

Conclusions

When planning interventions to reduce transmission, rather than purely to reduce morbidity, current school-based interventions are unlikely to be enough to achieve the desired results.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/7/1/266 This article is part of the series Mathematical models for parasites and vectors.
Subjects:	QU Biochemistry > QU 26.5 Informatics. Automatic data processing. Computers QX Parasitology > Helminths. Annelida > QX 200 Helminths WA Public Health > Preventive Medicine > WA 108 Preventive health services. Preventive medicine. Travel Medicine. WA Public Health > Preventive Medicine > WA 110 Prevention and control of communicable diseases. Transmission of infectious diseases
Faculty: Department:	Clinical Sciences & International Health > Clinical Sciences Department
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-7-266
Depositing User:	Lynn Roberts-Maloney
Date Deposited:	14 Apr 2015 13:09
Last Modified:	06 Feb 2018 13:09
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/5080

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