Study area and population

The study was conducted in the resource-poor neighbourhood Nova Vitoria in Manaus, capital of Amazonas State, Brazil. Manaus is situated at 03°06' south latitude and has a tropical monsoonal climate following the Köppen-Geiger classification with a dry season (less than 60 mm precipitation/month) usually in August and heavy monsoon rains during the rest of the year [11]. As many other resource-poor communities in Brazil, the study area was built up without permission of public authorities. This explains the lack of public infrastructure such as health facilities, childcare, paved streets or a sewage disposal system. In consequence many stray dogs and cats roamed through the streets and children were playing unattended on the sandy ground. The population was poor, one third of the households experienced food shortage in the past 12 months. Most of the families had several children. The study area and population have been described in detail previously [2].

Study design

At baseline all households in the study area were visited. Based on stringent inclusion criteria 92% of the households were admitted to the cross-sectional study. Methods of the cross-sectional study have been published previously [2]. In brief, all household members were examined clinically for HrCLM and environmental, socio-economic and behaviour-related risk factors were documented using pre-tested, structured questionnaires.

All children of the 262 households were assessed for eligibility for the cohort and then monitored monthly for the presence of new HrCLM (Fig 1). The examination took place in a room where privacy was guaranteed. The whole body surface was examined, only the genital area was spared in case itching was absent. HrCLM was diagnosed clinically when the characteristic slow-progressing, elevated linear or serpiginous track was present [12–14].

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Fig 1. Flowchart of participants in the cohort.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006662.g001

Inclusion criteria for the cohort were: residence in the study area, absence of HrCLM-infection at baseline, age under 18 and provision of an informed written consent. Children who were found infected at baseline were included on the day they received treatment with ivermectin or topical thiabendazole. In all but one child, HrCLM lesions had resolved by the next follow-up.

Due to an expected important drop out rate caused by out- and in-migration of whole families and temporary residence of family members in the countryside outside Manaus, we chose an open cohort design. Siblings of participants and children of newly encountered families replaced children who were lost for follow-up in order to keep the number of cohort members stable (Fig 1). Participants who entered the cohort after baseline were examined and interrogated in an identical manner. In case of temporary absence, only the time of presence in the study area between two consecutive follow-ups was analysed.

Participants lost to follow-up before the second examination (n = 29) were excluded from the analysis. To avoid selection bias 12 individuals, who were not identified by active case finding but presented to the team for procurement of treatment, were excluded. One patient was excluded because he refused to be treated with ivermectin (Fig 1).

In order to gather information on reinfections, individuals censored after HrCLM diagnosis were observed further after treatment (S1 Fig). These data were included in the analysis of monthly incidence and prevalence, and for analysis of clinical characteristics.

Episodes of HrCLM at recruitment were documented and included in the analysis of clinical characteristics and monthly prevalence, if the prerequisite of residency for more than 2 months in the study area was fulfilled.

For the calculation of monthly incidence rates only participants without HrCLM or participants that had been treated in the preceding month were included.

The study started in April 2009 (rainy season) and ended in September 2009 (which in 2009 was still part of the dry season).

Ethical considerations

The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Fundação de Medicina Tropical–Amazonas (FMT-AM). Informed written consent was obtained from each participant’s legal guardian. Every individual with HrCLM was offered free treatment independently whether he or she participated in the study. Treatment consisted of ivermectin (Ivermec, Uci-farma, São Paulo, Brazil) given as single oral dose (200 μg/kg). In the case of children <5 years or <15 kg, thiabendazole 5% (Tiadol, Bunker Indústria Farmacêutica Ltda., São Paulo, Brazil) was topically applied 3 times a day for one week [2].

Statistics

Data were entered in Microsoft Office Access 2007, cleaned for entering errors and analysed with PASW Statistics Version 18.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA). Missing data were assumed to be missing at random and were marked in the analysis. A wealth score was formed out of household assets using principal component analysis as previously described [2,15]. Income and age were categorized similar to previous population-based studies to allow comparison [2,4,10,16].

Time to infection was defined as the time between the date of inclusion in the cohort and the date of diagnosis of HrCLM, date of last examination before lost to follow-up, or date of last examination at the end of the study (right censoring), whichever occurred first. In case of temporary absence, only the time between consecutive follow-ups was included. Lost to follow-ups were compared to those who were censored by event or end of the study using chi-square-test or likelihood ratio where appropriate.

For bivariable risk factor analysis, hazard ratios (HR) were calculated together with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) using a Cox proportional hazards model.

For multivariable risk factor analysis, all variables that showed weak evidence of an association with HrCLM (p<0.1) were entered into a stepwise Cox regression. Only significant variables (p<0.05) remained in the model. We calculated standard errors and 95% CI to identify multicollinearity and removed variables where necessary. We used log-minus-log function to check if proportional hazard assumption was satisfied.

Kaplan-Meier curves were used to visualize event-free periods and differences in incidence between sexes, age groups, frequency of barefoot walking and wealth strata.

We calculated Population Attributable Fraction (PAF) for independent risk factors practically amenable to intervention. As only one risk factor was amenable to intervention, we used Levins unadjusted equation: {p_e(RR-1)}/ {p_e(RR-1)+1} with p_e being the proportion of the population, which is exposed to the risk factor [17,18]. RR was calculated as a rate ratio.

Incidence rate and prevalence were determined monthly. Seasonal changes in prevalence, clinical presentation (superinfection, number of lesions, site of infection) and total monthly precipitation in Manaus were correlated using Spearman´s rank correlation with a two-tailed significance level of p<0.05. Climate data were obtained from the International Institute of Meteorology of Brazil (INMET).

The overall incidence rate was extrapolated from the number of patients divided by the accumulated time to HrCLM infection. Correspondingly, reinfection rate was calculated for the subgroup of patients who were infected at the first examination and were included after treatment. Monthly incidence rates were obtained by dividing the number of HrCLM-infections by the number of followed children during the corresponding time period multiplied by 12 assuming an exact 1-month-period between two follow-ups. Corresponding 95% CI were calculated by a Poisson regression.

Incidence

So far, an incidence rate of HrCLM has never been determined in an appropriately designed study. Calculated monthly it showed a seasonal variation between a maximum of 1.05 per person-year during rainy season and a minimum of 0.21 per person-year during dry season.

The overall incidence rate was 0.52 cases per person-year. That means that on the average every second child will get infected with HrCLM within one year, if the observed six months are representative for the whole year.

The reinfection rate was even higher (1.08 per person-year). HrCLM-infections are not distributed homogenously throughout the child population; but obviously, children with a certain high-risk profile get infected several times a year.

Considering the possible implications of such an infection including pruritus, sleep disturbance, impaired school performance and superinfection, this is a massive problem within the child population[5,21].

Risk factors

Most of the known risk factors identified in our previous cross-sectional study in Manaus and other studies in Northeast Brazil, could be confirmed by the present cohort study [2,4,10]. Male sex was the strongest predictor for HrCLM-infection with a more than three times higher risk in boys than in girls. Children between 10 and 14 years had a nearly two-fold higher risk to get infected than children of the youngest age group. Both might be due to gender-related behaviour or the extent of parental surveillance, as hypothesised earlier [4]. Generally, boys may spend more time outdoors, have more contact with the soil when playing and are less attended by their parents. These characteristics may be more present when children grow older, which might explain in part the age-related differences in hazard ratios.

Walking barefoot especially on sandy ground may also be a risk factor in travellers [6]. In endemic areas, the frequency of using protective footwear clearly influences the risk of infection [2]. The estimated PAF related to barefoot walking on sandy ground was 45%, meaning that nearly half of the infections with HrCLM could have been prevented if all children wore shoes [17]. Even plastic sandals, which are the typical footwear in this area, can prevent infection [2].

HrCLM is a poverty-related disease. Poverty-related living conditions with stray dogs and cats, unpaved streets and many unattended children playing in the streets create a beneficial environment for the transmission of hookworm larvae. More than half of the study households had only one minimum wage or less to their disposition [2]. But even within this poor community, poverty was an independent predictor for the acquisition of HrCLM. This corroborates the results of our cross-sectional study as well as observations from other neglected tropical diseases [2,22,23].

The presence of animal faeces on the compound was the only independent risk factor identified in the previous cross-sectional study that could not be confirmed by this study. This might be due to the different composition of the study population with only children, who might spent more time outside the compound while playing with other children.

Policy recommendations

Accordingly, the only deducible measure for disease control in the study area is prevention of barefoot walking. However, just providing shoes might not be sufficient similar to what we previously observed in a study on tungiasis control [24]. The underlying causes are much more complex. Even good parental knowledge about disease etiology couldn´t prevent HrCLM-infection [2,21]. Mothers feel unable to look out for their children [21]. Incidence was highest in boys aged 10–14 who probably are the less attended children in a poor household. Furthermore, the disease burden was highest among the poorest of the poor. In this way, HrCLM is a neglected disease acquired by the most neglected parts of the population. Only by changing social circumstances and health education of parents and children, preventive behaviour may be established.

Limitations

There may have been a selection bias in favour of younger children because of school attendance and work during visiting hours in the daytime. For security reasons visiting hours could not be extended beyond 6 p.m. Due to an exhaustive sampling strategy and high participation rate, we did obtain, however, a representative sample of the paediatric daytime population, which most likely is predominantly exposed in the study area.

Although children carry the biggest part of disease burden, the results cannot be translated to the whole population as no adults participated. [2,4,10].

We observed a differential loss of participants (Table 1). This might have led to an overestimation of events in the group exposed to “walking barefoot on sandy ground”. Otherwise we have no reasons to believe that missing data biased the results.

The absence of treatment in the study area may have led to more HrCLM-infections in April and biased therefore the changes in disease intensity (multiple lesions per person) and severity (superinfection). However, the decrease in disease intensity continued over the whole study period and the correlation with monthly precipitation was significant.

Incidence rate was calculated with person-time and referred to a whole year even though the probability of disease is not constant during the study period. The observation period, however, included three months of the dry and three months of the raining season and may therefore be representative for the whole year.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the prevalence of HrCLM showed seasonal variation and was correlated with precipitation and disease intensity. Overall incidence rate among children was as high as 0.52 per person-year. Independent risk factors were male sex, age, walking barefoot on sandy ground and extreme poverty.