A study of socio-demographic & morbidity profile of lymphatic filariasis patients with lymphoedema om Warangal rural, Telangana.

INTRODUCTION: Lymphatic Filariasis is a parasitic infection that can result in an altered lymphatic system and the abnormal enlargement of body parts, causing pain and social stigma. It's one of the most disabling of all diseases (who) 6. In India, high prevalence was found in 21 states including 256 districts, this includes Telangana and Andhra Pradesh7of which 47,000 people are suffering from lymphatic Filariasis in telangana8.
Lymphatic Filariasis is one of the six eradicable diseases in the world and goal of the national health policy is to eliminate lymphatic filariasis from India by 2015.Despite many national programmes aimed at eliminating filariasis, hardly success is achieved in this area. So,present study is done to know the factors affecting course of disease and morbidity of lymphatic filariasis.
OBJECTIVE: To show the relationship between socio-demographic factors of study patients with lymphatic filariasis and their morbidity profile.
METHODOLOGY: The study is a cross sectional study on filariasis patients residing at rural field practising area of KMC Warangal, Wardhannapet. Sample size of 53 cases was attained during a period of 3 months. All cases of filariasis with visible lymphodema, >10 yrs of age and those who had given a written consent to participate in the study. Predesigned pretested semistructured questionnaire was used & pilot study was done prior to the study. Study Analysis was done Using Micro Soft Excel 2007, Spss 17th (Trail) Version and appropriate statistical analysis was done.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Majority of the study population are illiterate older adult males belonging to very low socio economic status living in poor sanitary conditions, increased chances of breeding in mosquitoes (76%) and study population with no protection against mosquito bite (28%)are found. Filariasis disease showed chronicity with stage-II lymphoedema of lower limbs, recurrent fever and secondary infections causing decrease in daily activity in study population.