School-based control of urinary schistosomiasis on Zanzibar, Tanzania: Monitoring micro-haematuria with reagent strips as a rapid urological assessment

Michael Duncan French; Michael Duncan French; David Rollinson; María-Gloria Basáñez; Ali F Mgeni; I Simba Khamis; J Russell Stothard

School-based control of urinary schistosomiasis on Zanzibar, Tanzania

Monitoring micro-haematuria with reagent strips as a rapid urological assessment

French, M. D., Rollinson, D., Basáñez, M-G., Mgeni, A. F., Khamis, I. S., & Stothard, J. R. (2007). School-based control of urinary schistosomiasis on Zanzibar, Tanzania: Monitoring micro-haematuria with reagent strips as a rapid urological assessment. Journal of Pediatric Urology, 3(5), 364-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpurol.2007.01.198

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate micro-haematuria, detected by Haemastix reagent strips, for diagnosis of urinary schistosomiasis during a 3-year period of school-based control on Zanzibar.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A sub-set of school children, from a total of 135,000 who were receiving treatment for urinary schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis, were monitored by parasitological and questionnaire methods for Schistosoma haematobium infections: at treatment baseline in 2004 (n=2002), follow up with re-treatment in 2005 (n=3278) and further follow up with re-treatment in 2006 (n=3993). Standard diagnostic scores for micro-haematuria were calculated against parasitological assessment.

RESULTS: Diagnostic scores of Haemastix remained strong throughout the 3-year period. In 2006, scores were: sensitivity (SS)=0.86 (95% CI: 0.86-0.88), specificity (SP)=0.99 (0.98-1.00), positive predictive value (PPV)=0.90 (0.88-0.91), negative predictive value (NPV)=0.98 (0.98-0.99) in boys; and SS=0.84 (0.82-0.86), SP=0.98 (0.98-0.99), PPV=0.77 (0.75-0.79) and NPV=0.99 (0.99-1.00) in girls. By comparison, reported blood in urine and pain upon urination were much lower and not as informative.

CONCLUSION: At a cost of approximately pound sterling 0.20/test, further use of reagent strips for monitoring of urinary schistosomiasis during ongoing control programmes should be advocated as a rapid, cost-effective and informative disease surveillance tool.