Introduction: Dental caries is one of the most common conditions affecting the general health of children. The present study was carried out among school children of Kathmandu valley to determine the prevalence of dental caries in two age groups. Methods: The study was conducted from December 2007 to May 2008. The age of the school children of the study was divided into two group: 5 - 6 years and 12 - 13 years. A stratifi ed cluster sampling with proportional allocation was used while grouping the subjects. The dental status examination was done with the help of trained dentists. Decayed, missed and fi lled teeth index and decayed, missed and fi lled surfaces index (dmft for primary dentition and DMFT for permanent dentition) were used as the standard tools for the determination of prevalence. Results: A total of 638 students (325 of age group 12 - 13 years and 313 of age group 5 - 6 years) from 30 different schools of the Kathmandu valley were included in the study. The caries status was found higher in the age group of 5 - 6 years than in the 12 - 13 years and it was found to be statistically signifi cant (p < 0.001). The dmfs and caries percentage of the age group 5 - 6 years and the DMFS and caries percent of the 12 - 13 years was found to be 3.79, 69 % and 1.6, 53.23 % respectively. The dmft/dmfs value was found to be signifi cant according to the districts in the 5 - 6 years age group whereas the DMFS was found statistically signifi cant among the sexes of the 12 - 13 years age group. Conclusions: The caries percentage was found to be above the recommended level of the World Health Organization. However, the DMFS and DMFT values were within the WHO level. Keywords: Children, dental caries, DMF index.

The present study investigated the intestinal parasitic infections in schoolchildren of Kapan VDC, Kathmandu, Nepal. A total of 330 schoolchildren were included in this study. Stool samples collected in clean, dry, screw-capped plastic containers were examined by formal-ether sedimentation technique. A total of 134 samples (40.6%) were positive for some kind of intestinal parasites. The percentage of monoparasitism (67.9%) were higher than multiparasitism (32.1%). Giardia lamblia (17.8%) and Trichuris trichiura (3.6%) were the commonest protozoa and helminthes respectively. Girls were marginally more infected (41.4%) than boys (39.8%) (p>0.05). Children <5 years were more infected (80.0%) than 5-10 years (36.0%) (p=0.001). Prevalence of parasitic infection rate was higher in family size >5 (41.5%) than ≤5 (40.1%) (p=0.82). In ethnic wise distribution, incidence rate of parasites was higher in Dalits (71.4%) and the least in Indo-Aryans (33.1%) (p<0.05). Children drinking water from groundwater source had marginally lower prevalence rate (31.3%) than who used tap water (58.4%) (p<0.001). The higher infection rate (51.3%) was observed in children belonging to labour family and the least in the business family (33.3%) (p=0.032). The children who had taken anti-parasitic drug within past 6 months had lower prevalence rate (25%) than those who had not taken drugs (44.4%) (p=0.005). Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 7(1): 22-26

A study was conducted at 13 different areas of Kathmandu Valley to know the status of arsenic in deep tube wells in post monsoon and winter in 2009 and 2010. The depth of the deep tube wells ranged from 75 m to 304 m. The study was also carried out to know the correlations between depths of the deep tube wells and arsenic concentration. The collected samples were analyzed as per standard method using spectrophotometer. The correlations of arsenic concentration in different season (post monsoon and winter) were also studied. 92.31% of deep tube wells in post monsoon and winter exceeded permissible values of World Health Organization guideline value 0.01 mg/L for drinking water but 38.46% deep tube wells in post monsoon and 46.15% of deep tube wells in winter exceeded permissible values of Nepal Drinking Water Standard of 0.05 mg/L. There was strong positive correlation in arsenic concentration between post monsoon and winter(r=0.94, p<0.001). There was weak but positive correlation between arsenic concentration and depth of deep tube wells in winter ( r=0.23, p=0.451). There was very weak correlations between arsenic concentration and depth of deep tube wells in post monsoon (r=0.055, p=0.859). The trend distribution maps were generated for arsenic in post monsoon and winter.