Population deworming every 6 months with albendazole in 1 million pre-school children in North India: DEVTA, a cluster-randomised trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In north India many pre-school children are underweight, many have intestinal worms, and 2-3% die at ages 1·0-6·0 years. We used the state-wide Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) infrastructure to help to assess any effects of regular deworming on mortality.

Methods

Participants in this cluster-randomised study were children in catchment areas of 8338 ICDS-staffed village child-care centres (under-5 population 1 million) in 72 administrative blocks. Groups of four neighbouring blocks were cluster-randomly allocated in Oxford between 6-monthly vitamin A (retinol capsule of 200,000 IU retinyl acetate in oil, to be cut and dripped into the child's mouth every 6 months), albendazole (400 mg tablet every 6 months), both, or neither (open control). Analyses of

SUBMITTER: Awasthi S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3647147 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature