Detecting Schistosoma haematobium infection by microscopy and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in school children in three senatorial districts of Cross River State, Nigeria

As a result of the poor sensitivity and specificity of the standard parasitological diagnostic methods currently being used, this study was conducted to compare the standard parasitological diagnostic methods and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in determining the prevalence of urinary schistosomiasis in Cross River State (CRS). The study was conducted between April 2015 and March 2016. Seven hundred and seventy seven (777) urine samples were randomly collected from selected school-age children. The urine samples were subjected to standard parasitological and molecular examinations. Chi-square test was used to test the differences between the data on subgroups and the results from specimen examinations. An overall prevalence of 1.7% was recorded using microscopy and 34.7% recorded using PCR. The highest prevalence of infection by microscopy occurred in the Southern Senatorial District (2.3%), while the Northern Senatorial District recorded the highest prevalence of infection by PCR (53.2%) ( p