Deworming program for women of reproductive age implemented through national iron folate supplementation program reduces prevalence of anemia: evidence from a community trial in rural Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Anemia causes debilitating outcomes for women and children, and can be of multifactorial etiology, soil transmitted helminth (STH) infection being one of them. The Bangladeshi government does not have any regular deworming program for women of reproductive age (WRAs), who constitute an important portion of the population. Hence, we conducted this study to generate evidence on the effect of regular deworming on STH infection status and anemia status of WRAs in rural Bangladesh. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study conducted in rural Bangladesh using existing healthcare delivery platform (Community Clinics) for mass deworming of WRAs. Catchment areas of two community clinics constituted the intervention arm, where the WRAs received two cycles of deworming four months apart on top of government recommended iron-folate supplementation (IFA), and catchment areas of two different community clinics were considered as the control arm where the study population received IFA but no deworming medication. Baseline and endline surveys were conducted on randomly selected participants to measure prevalence of anemia and STH infection using HemoCue 201+ and Kato-Katz respectively. Results: The study area contained 4791 women aged 15-49 years. Among them, 2441 lived in the intervention area and 2350 lived in the control area. Compliance to deworming medication and IFA was 82% (2001 out of 2441) and 79% (1938 out of 2441) for the two cycles, respectively. In the baseline survey there was no significant difference in prevalence of anemia between the intervention and control arms (63.7% vs 65.7%; p=0.522). However, the endline survey yielded significant difference in anemia prevalence between the arms (47.5% vs 65.7%, p<0.001) rendering a 14% reduction in anemia due the intervention (p=0.004). Similarly, our intervention was shown to reduce STH infection by 16% (p<0.001) Conclusions: Our study clearly showed that regular deworming of WRA benefits their anemia and STH infection status.