SummaryGeophagia may be harmful as a method for the transmission of geohelminths. In this study, we pose two questions in a representative sample of 970 pregnant women from Pemba Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Can consumed earth be a vector for geohelminth infection? And do geophagists have differential parasitic infection? The parasitological content of 59 non-food substance samples was analysed. Cross-sectional data regarding pica behaviour were collected through interviews conducted by local researchers. Ascaris, Trichuris and hookworm status was ascertained through Kato-Katz smears. The prevalence of geophagia at baseline was 5.6% and the overall prevalence of Ascaris, Trichuris and hookworm infection was 5.6%, 33.2% and 32.9%, respectively. No consumed soil samples contained infectious parasitic stages, and only one of the consumed pica substances (charcoal) contained parasites of potential risk to human health. Neither the prevalence nor the intensity of infection with Ascaris, Trichuris or hookworm differed significantly by geophagia status. Furthermore, in multivariate models, geophagia was not a significant predictor of helminth infection status. We conclude that geophagia is not a source of Trichuris or hookworm infection among pregnant women in Pemba (insufficient power to evaluate the effect of Ascaris), which is in contrast to existing findings of helminth infection and geophagia. KeywordsPica; Geophagia; Helminthiasis; Pregnancy; Parasites; Zanzibar * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 607 351 0172; fax: +1 607 255 1033. E-mail address: sly3@cornell.edu (S.L. Young). Authors' contributions: SLY conceived the substudy design, oversaw sample collection, collected ethnographic data and drafted the paper; DG determined sample preservation methods, examined pica samples, interpreted parasitology results and wrote the parasitology methods; THF designed and supervised the parasitological sample collection and analysis, and assisted with data analysis and drafting the paper; SMA assisted with substudy design, researcher training and pica sample collection;

Some 255 feral hogs were serologically tested for Brucella titers at a location in the lower coastal plain of South Carolina. Eighteen percent were reactors. The organism was cultured from lymph node tissues in one 3+ years old boar and identified as Brucella suis biotype 1. Prevalence of sero-positive animals increased with age. There were no important differences between sexes.

The healthfulness of geophagia, the purposive consumption of earth, is contested. One way in which geophagia may be harmful is as a vector for the transmission of geohelminths. In this study, we pose two questions in a representative sample of 970 pregnant women from Pemba Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania: Is consumed earth a vector for geohelminth infection? Do geophagists have differential parasitic infection? Parasitological analyses were conducted on 42 samples of Pemban soil. Cross‐sectional data about pica behavior was collected through interviews conducted by local researchers. Ascaris, Trichuris and hookworm status was ascertained through Kato‐Katz smears. The prevalence of geophagia in this sample was 5.6%, and overall prevalence of Ascaris, Trichuris and hookworm was 5.6%, 33.2% and 32.9%, respectively. In this study, no consumed soil samples contained infectious parasitic stages. Furthermore, neither the prevalence nor the intensity of infection with Ascaris, Trichuris or hookworm differed significantly by geophagia status. Our results indicate that geophagia is not a source of geohelminth infection among pregnant women in Pemba, which is in contrast to existing findings in other populations. (SLY was supported by NIH training grant 5 T32 HD007331, data collection was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Einaudi Center for Intl. Studies, Cornell University, and the Div. of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University.)