EVALUATING THE EFFICACY OF COCONUT OIL IN THE CONTROL OF TUNGIASIS
ACKNOWLEGMENT
Sincere thanks go to almighty God for enabling me to accomplish my research mission. I would like to acknowledge my worthy supervisors Prof. Florence Oyieke of NAIROBI University and Dr. Evan Mathenge of KEMRI for their enormous academic input and guidance in ensuring that I come up with sound results. I also would like to acknowledge Mr. Karoki, the PHO Kandara for allowing me to conduct my research in his area of jurisdiction, together with the medical expertise he offered me in the study.
The team of community health workers led by Mr. George and Mr. Njoroge cannot be forgotten; they facilitated my access to tungiasis victims and assisted in applying …show more content…
It is an insect which turns into an ectoparasite once embedded on the host. It is a public health problem in Kenya particularly in poor rural communities. There is therefore a need to develop innovative local solutions to this problem based on scientific data. In Brazil, a derivative of Jojoba, neem and coconut oil called zanzarin has been used in tungiasis control. This study aimed at evaluating the efficacy of coconut oil, alone, in the control of tungiasis in a rural setting.
Methodology: A “before and after without control design” was used in the study.
A baseline survey was undertaken to assess infestation using two severity scores; one for acute and the other for chronic disease. A cohort of 39 patients, with varying degrees of infestation was recruited for treatment. Participants were examined for a period of 30 days followed by treatment with coconut oil applied twice daily for a period of ten weeks. The severity scores and infestation rate were expected to reduce to zero after the intervention.
The spearman rank correlation coefficient was determined to assess the significance of the association between the severity scores and infestation rate and was found to be strong (acute, r = 0.6 and chronic, r= 0.8 …show more content…
Indian soldiers without appropriate footwear became infected in Africa and took the ectoparasite to Bombay and Karachi in 1869 (Gordon, 1941; Bruce et al., 1942; Hoeppli,1963). The common English name for T. penetrans is sand flea .Many local names like jigger , chique ,chigoe ,puce-chique ,nigua ,chica etc. indicate that tungiasis has long been a common disease in tropics (Soria and Capri,1953;Matias, 1989;Mashek et al.,1997). Epidemiology of
ACKNOWLEGMENT
Sincere thanks go to almighty God for enabling me to accomplish my research mission. I would like to acknowledge my worthy supervisors Prof. Florence Oyieke of NAIROBI University and Dr. Evan Mathenge of KEMRI for their enormous academic input and guidance in ensuring that I come up with sound results. I also would like to acknowledge Mr. Karoki, the PHO Kandara for allowing me to conduct my research in his area of jurisdiction, together with the medical expertise he offered me in the study.
The team of community health workers led by Mr. George and Mr. Njoroge cannot be forgotten; they facilitated my access to tungiasis victims and assisted in applying …show more content…
It is an insect which turns into an ectoparasite once embedded on the host. It is a public health problem in Kenya particularly in poor rural communities. There is therefore a need to develop innovative local solutions to this problem based on scientific data. In Brazil, a derivative of Jojoba, neem and coconut oil called zanzarin has been used in tungiasis control. This study aimed at evaluating the efficacy of coconut oil, alone, in the control of tungiasis in a rural setting.
Methodology: A “before and after without control design” was used in the study.
A baseline survey was undertaken to assess infestation using two severity scores; one for acute and the other for chronic disease. A cohort of 39 patients, with varying degrees of infestation was recruited for treatment. Participants were examined for a period of 30 days followed by treatment with coconut oil applied twice daily for a period of ten weeks. The severity scores and infestation rate were expected to reduce to zero after the intervention.
The spearman rank correlation coefficient was determined to assess the significance of the association between the severity scores and infestation rate and was found to be strong (acute, r = 0.6 and chronic, r= 0.8 …show more content…
Indian soldiers without appropriate footwear became infected in Africa and took the ectoparasite to Bombay and Karachi in 1869 (Gordon, 1941; Bruce et al., 1942; Hoeppli,1963). The common English name for T. penetrans is sand flea .Many local names like jigger , chique ,chigoe ,puce-chique ,nigua ,chica etc. indicate that tungiasis has long been a common disease in tropics (Soria and Capri,1953;Matias, 1989;Mashek et al.,1997). Epidemiology of