Impact of the “BAlatrine” intervention on soil-transmitted helminth infections in central Java, Indonesia: a pilot study

Darren J. Gray, Johanna M. Kurscheid*, M. J. Park, Budi Laksono, Dongxu Wang, Archie C.A. Clements, Suharyo Hadisaputro, Ross Sadler, Donald E. Stewart

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
2 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Many latrine campaigns in developing countries fail to be sustained because the introduced latrine is not appropriate to local socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions, and there is an inadequate community health education component. We tested a low-cost, locally designed and constructed all-weather latrine (the “BALatrine”), together with community education promoting appropriate hygiene-related behaviour, to determine whether this integrated intervention effectively controlled soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections. We undertook a pilot intervention study in two villages in Central Java, Indonesia. The villages were randomly allocated to either control or intervention with the intervention village receiving the BALatrine program and the control village receiving no program. STH-infection status was measured using the faecal flotation diagnostic method, before and eight months after the intervention. Over 8 months, the cumulative incidence of STH infection was significantly lower in the intervention village than in the control village: 13.4% vs. 27.5% (67/244 vs. 38/283, p < 0.001). The intervention was particularly effective among children: cumulative incidence 3.8% (2/53) for the intervention vs. 24.1% (13/54) for the control village (p < 0.001). The integrated BALatrine intervention was associated with a reduced incidence of STH infection. Following on from this pilot study, a large cluster-randomised controlled trial was commenced (ACTRN12613000523707).

Original languageEnglish
Article number141
Number of pages10
JournalTropical medicine and infectious disease
Volume4
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 06 Dec 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Keywords

  • Indonesia
  • Latrine intervention
  • Sanitation and hygiene (WASH)
  • Soil-transmitted helminths
  • Water

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Immunology and Microbiology
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
  • Infectious Diseases

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