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Background: Scabies remains to be one of the commonest of the skin diseases seen in
developing countries. Its distribution is subject to a cycle of infection, with peaks and troughs of
disease prevalence, this periodicity is often less obvious in poor communities. Scabies affects
families, particularly impacting on pre-school children to adolescents and elders largely through
association with secondary bacterial infection caused by group A Streptococci and
Staphylococcus aureus. The burden of scabies is further compounded by untreated or non-cured
cases, which develop nephritis, rheumatic heart disease, and sepsis in developing countries.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and assess management of
scabies among patients attending Regional Dermatology Training Centre (RDTC) at KCMC.
Methodology: This was a retrospective hospital-based study, which was done through extraction
of data from files of patients with a final diagnosis of scabies attending at RDTC from January
2010 to December 2015. The study included patients of all age groups. Social demographic data,
signs and symptoms of the disease, and treatment given to the patient were extracted from files,
recorded in data extraction sheet and then entered in computer. Data analysis was done using
SPSS 20.0.
Results: Files of 280 patients with scabies who attended RDTC from 2010 to 2015 were
enrolled, from which 153 patients (54.6%) were males. The overall prevalence of scabies from
2010 to 2015 was 0.45%. The prevalence in males was 0.25%, which was higher than in females.
The age groups 5-14 years and 15-24 years had similar prevalence (0.14%), which was the
highest among all age groups. Students had the prevalence of 0.23%, which was the highest of all
occupations. In 2014 the prevalence of scabies was 0.63%, this was highest prevalence in all the
studied years. Scabies was managed by scabicidal agents particularly BBE, other agents used
were lindane lotion 1%, ivermectin and permethrin cream 5%. Antihistamines such as cetrizine
and promethazine were given to reduce itching as well as steroids like Betrinovate 0.025% and
0.01%. Impetiginized scabies or superinfection was managed by giving oral or topical
antimicrobial agents such as erythromycin, ampiclox syrup, cloxacillin syrup, mucipurocin cream
and fucidin ointment. Patients with crusted scabies were given keratolytic agents.
Conclusion: Scabies is still a problem in a number of places. The higher prevalence of scabies in
pre-school and school children suggests poor personal and environment hygiene particularly
sleeping environment and probably those children are at greater risk of skin to skin contact |
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