Background:Intestinal parasitic infections are one of the neglected tropical diseases listed by world health organization. Parasitic infections among school going tribal children cause significant anaemia and malnutrition. Our study mainly focused on estimating the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections and focused on iron deficiency anaemia among the tribal school going children. Methods: A prospective study for one year was conducted at a tertiary care hospital and study group was tribal children from hostels and schools. Ethical committee approval was obtained and study included collection of socio demographic data, anthropometric data, stool examination for intestinal parasitic infections, Hb% estimation by "Hemocue globinometer Hb 301 System" a portable hemometer for Hb estimation. S. iron, S. transferrin and Total iron binding capacity were also estimated. Statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS version 20 and analyzed. P value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: This 428 study participants with 66.36% boys and 33.64% girls were enrolled. The prevalence of parasitic infections was 42.06%. Protozoal infections were 41.11% when compared to helminthic infections (26.67%) and mixed infections in 32.22%. Entamoeba histolytica was the predominant protozoal parasite identified (30%) and Ascaris lumbricoides among the helminthic infection (13.3%). Presence of anaemia in the present study population was 11.21% and among the study group with parasitic infections it was 66.67%. Conclusion: To conclude, regular deworming practices, awareness regarding hand washing practices, iron and folic acid supplementation irrespective of nutritional status and health education could significantly reduce the incidence of anaemia associated with intestinal parasitic infections.

Background: Anaemia defined as reduction in the concentration in Haemoglobin is one of the key health indicators of health care system of the country. Accurate screening methods are required to estimate the levels of haemoglobin for diagnosing the cause of anaemia. Objectives of the study was to analyze and compare the results of haemoglobin concentrations estimated with automated haematology analyzer and point of care device HemoCue Hb301.Methods: It is a prospective cross-sectional study was conducted for one year after ethical approval. Non fasting capillary and venous blood samples were collected from the selected cases of children and Haemoglobin concentrations were estimated by automated analyzer and HemoCue Hb301 system and the values were noted. Quality control checks were performed for both. Statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS Version 24.0.Results: Mean Hb% concentration was estimated in 108 children with 44 female and 64 males. The mean value of Automated hematology analyzer (11.965±1.012) was significantly higher when compared with the mean value of HemoCue Hb301 (11.697±1.312) (p=0.002). There was a significantly strong correlation between HemoCue Hb301and Automated hematology analyzer (r-value = 0.732, p <0.0001).Conclusions: The HemoCue is useful in many different settings and remains a widely used method in field settings as it has several advantages and is relatively inexpensive compared with automated haematology analysers. Further studies are needed to better understand potential sources of error in the Hb assessment by HemoCue with the aim to better train phlebotomists and implement appropriate standardised procedures.

Owing to the living condition, tribal community is at higher risk for diet-associated health disorders. The indigenous tribal populations like “The Yanadi”, residing in state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Being in the lower economic strata, they are deprived of proper food and access to basic health facilities is also constrained. Yanadi tribal children exhibit characteristic features of IDA, stunted growth, wasting and lower cognitive skills, which significantly affects their education. The study investigated the prevalence of anemia in 384 male Yanadi tribal schoolchildren aged 6-14 years and multiple approaches were adopted for survey-based data on social, economic and environment variables of the study-cohort was gathered along with anthropometric information. It was observed that huge majority of the tribal parents lacked primary school education and economic condition of such families is under dilapidating state, leading to consumption of improper food. Strikingly, 56% of the children exhibited the commonest symptom of anemia, pale conjunctiva. Overall analysis of the study participating children, following the WHO grading, close to 28% were found to be anemic and hemoglobin content (g/L) was observed to be close in both age groups, 11 to 14 years (11.889±1.123) and 7 to 10 years (11.734±1.309). Largely, the Yanadi tribal children projected cognitive impairment in the form of poor memory function (33%), down regulated cognitive functions (46%), and impaired attention functions (74.5%). It is somewhat relieving to see that anemia amongst Yanadi male children is not as severe as observed in children of other populations, as reported. However, the study projects out impaired cognitive and behavior skills amongst the participants, emphasizing the need of extending the study in a larger cohort.