Additional information on the evolution of the prevalence of digestive parasitic diseases in Martinique Island (French West Indies).

A comparison by stool examination of the prevalence of the most common digestive parasitic diseases was made between the years 1968, 1972 (results from the former Pasteur Institute of Martinique) and 1995 (results from the Departemental Laboratory of Hygiene of Martinique). This study shows that the outstanding characteristic of the dramatic decrease in the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminthiasis and intestinal schistosomiasis can be noted as early as the beginning of the seventies. An hypothesis of explanation would point to the combination of a general improvement in hygiene (due to economic growth) and an increase in drug use given the availability of efficient and well-tolerated anthelminthics, and for intestinal schistosomiasis, the impact of urbanization along with the growing scarcity of the intermediate host snail, especially as of 1983 thanks to an ecological control programme.