A SURVEY OF FREQUENCY AND ETIOLOGY OF MYCOSES OF THE HEAD AND BODY AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN VARAMIN (SOUTH TEHRAN)

Superficial mycoses is an endemic diease in Iran specially rural area and area of poor hygiene, where the children are dealing with domestic animals. Scalp mycoses is almost always seen in school age children and younger.So study of fungal investigation in Iran is important from point of view of public health and preventive medicine. Varamin, an agricultural city near Tehran was selected for study. Five boy and five girl primary schools have been chosen randomly in that area. The office of education and statistics authorities of the area have cooperated in this study. 1099 boys (53.51%) and 956 girls (46.5%), a total of 2050 students aging 7-14 year were investigated. Sampling was taken from suspicious as well as normal appearing children for mycological study. Special questioner was made for all children containing required informations in relation to special items except the skin diseases. Two cases of periungal candidiasis, 2 cases of tinea versicolor (2 girls, 0.1%) and 1 case of tinea capitis (a seven year old girl, 0.05%) affected by trichophyton violaceum were found. No significant difference was noted with similar studies in other areas of the country.