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Nowadays, the prevalence rate of soil-transmitted helminthiasis is decreasing rapidly in Korea. Ascaris infection in student population lowered from 55.6% in 1970 to 15.1% in 1979. Trichuris infection is another popularly prevalent soil-transmitted helminthiasis in Korea, and any effective anthelmintic has not been used to treat it. The stool examination data of primary school children by The Korean Association for Parasite Eradication (KAPE) were analyzed in order to observe the tendency of Trichuris infection in primary schoolchil dren. The results are summarized as follows. 1. The number of students examined from 1970 to 1979 was 128,634,138. Primary school children were 82,399,993 among them. Egg positive rate of Trichuris trichiura in primary school children decreased from 44.1% in 1970 to 12.8% in 1979. 2. By area, the egg positive rates of Trichuris trichiura were over 40% in Seoul, Pusan, Kyonggi, North Chungchong, North Cholla, North Kyongsang, South Kyongsang in 1970. And they decreased to about 10% in 1979 nationwidely. 3. The positive rates were 2.3%~8.9% higher in spring than in autumn for the 10 years. 4. The decreasing pattern of Trichuris infection is similar to that of ascariasis in same population and duration. By above findings, the prevalence of Trichuris infection has been decreasing rapidly la primary school children without any chemotherapy in Korea. This fact can be explained by the biological difference that Trichuris trichiura produces much less eggs than Ascaris lumbricoides. Therefore, trichuriasis can be regarded as more vulnerable to the environmental improvement than ascariasis. Furthermore, the health education has also contributed greatly for the decrease of Trichuris infection.
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