ACCURACY OF DIAGNOSIS OF INTESTINAL HELMINTH PARASITES IN A REFERENCE DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY IN THE ASHANTI REGION OF GHANA

There are reports of many intestinal-helminth negative stool specimens in most laboratories in Ghanaeven though the prevalence of these infections seems to be on the increase. In this study 2000 stool specimenscollected between May and October 2008 in The Reference Laboratory of the Ashanti Region of Ghana werescreened using Direct Wet Mount, Kato-Katz and Formol-Ether Concentration methods. The Formol-EtherConcentration method gave the highest prevalence (11.1%) of helminth parasites made up of hookworm,Dicrocoelium dendriticum, Strongyloides stercoralis, Schistosoma mansoni, Hymenolepis nana, Taenia speciesand Trichuris trichiura. The direct wet mount and Kato-Katz detected total prevalence of 3.2% and 5.1%respectively. Kato-Katz showed good agreement with the formol-ether concentration in the detection ofhookworms, T. trichiura and S. mansoni infections (99.1% sensitivity) with positive and negative predictive valuesof 100% and 99.5% respectively. This study confirmed earlier reports that the traditional Direct Wet Mountscreening test is less sensitivity hence the employment of Formol-Ether Concentration as a confirmatory test inroutine laboratory examination of stool samples will significantly reduce misdiagnosis of intestinal helminthinfections and its attendant public health consequences.