Recall of intestinal helminthiasis by HIV-infected South Africans and avoidance of possible misinterpretation of egg excretion in worm/HIV co-infection analyses

Table 6 Comparison between the percentages of volunteers who remembered deworming treatment or non-treatment

	HIV-positives (n = 170)			HIV-negatives (n = 65)			Comparison
Treatment or non-treatment	Numbers²	%	95% CI	Numbers³	%	95% CI	Difference	95% CI⁴
Specific deworming treatment	57/93	61.3	51.1, 70.6	20/47	42.6	29.5, 56.7	18.7*	-1.3, -34.7
Mebendazole (broad spectrum)	16/93	17.2	10.9, 26.1	2/47	4.3	1.2, 14.2	12.9*	1.1, 22.4
Piperazine (narrow spectrum)	28/93	30.1	21.7, 40.1	8/47	17	8.9, 30.1	13.1	-2.5, 25.9
Traditional medicine¹	13/93	14	8.4, 22.5	10/47	21.3	12.0, 34.9	-7.3	-22.0, 5.3
Treatment not deemed necessary	36/93	38.7	29.4, 48.9	27/47	57.5	43.3, 70.5	-18.7*	-34.7, -1.3

CI = confidence interval.
*Significantly more HIV-positives remembered specific deworming treatment (including mebendazole) and fewer thought it was not necessary to treat against worms (p < 0.05).
¹Traditional medicine breakdown (n = 23): aloe 11; herbs 2; pumpkin pips 2; dried worm 1; reeds 1; benzine 1; unspecified 5. Concerning the 11 reports of the use of aloe, it has been shown that extracts of Aloe marlothii have anthelmintic activity in vitro [50].
²93/170 remembered treatment detail, or non-treatment.
³47/65 remembered treatment detail, or non-treatment.
⁴In this column, CIs that exclude zero indicate a significant difference between the percentages for the HIV-positives and HIV-negatives (p < 0.05) [41].

ISSN: 1471-2334