China has a tapeworm problem, and it’s reinforcing the poverty cycle, study finds
Brain-damaging tapeworm more common for children in rural mountain areas, researchers say after assessing Chinese school pupils living at altitude
A study has for the first time found high levels of tapeworm infection, potentially causing cognitive defects, among primary schoolchildren in rural mountainous areas.
Researchers in a joint study by Stanford University in the United States and Sichuan province health authority said that such infections made children highly vulnerable, with severe social consequences.
Neurological problems caused by the infections could lead to poor academic performance, dropping out of school and reinforcement the poverty cycle, it found.
“This disease invades the brain,” said John Openshaw, of Stanford School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. “Children who are affected during formative school years risk cognitive deficits which could enforce a cycle of poverty.”
The study, co-authored with researchers at Sichuan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, assessed about 3,000 children in 27 schools for the tapeworm infection, by questionnaire and by analysing their blood samples in 2015. The children, aged mostly 11 to 13, were drawn from three counties at high altitude in western Sichuan province.