Detecting 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%) ( < 0.05). Males were more infected (2.4%) than females (0.6%) using microscopy. With PCR, males were also more infected (35.7%) compared to females (33.3%) ( < 0.05). The highest prevalence of infection using microscopy and PCR both occurred in school-age children aged 5-8 years (3.6% and 47.8% respectively), while the lowest prevalence for both methods occurred in participants aged 17 - 20 years (0% for both methods) ( < 0.05). This study has shown PCR to be effective in detecting schistosomiasis infection and also re-affirms the endemicity of urinary schistosomiasis in the three Senatorial Districts of CRS.