Descriptive study for the patients with scabies in Dhi-Qar province, southern of Iraq

Scabies is a common disease affecting the parasitic skin that spreads throughout the world, especially in the developing world. This study aimed to detects the frequency of scabies and its relation age, gender and occupations in Dhi Qar, Iraq. The study was performed during the period from December 2017 to May 2018 in patients attending Al-Hussein teaching hospital. Patients were physically examined for scabies as well as microscopic examination of skin scraping was done to confirmed the diagnosis. Scabies diagnosed in 337 patients during the study period. Of this total, 216 (58.3%) were males and 161 (42.7%) were females. Their ages range from 1-70 years. The highest frequency of scabies was occur among patients aged 1-10 years (27.1%) and the incidence rate decreased with the progress of age. The highest rate of scabies was found in student group (34.5%), followed by a housewife and somewhat unemployed, which had higher rates of infection compared with the other groups. In conclusion, scabies were high among males and childhood age, where the disease is decrease with the progression of age. Also, the disease was high prevalent in the students which indicates that the overcrowding is a main factors to scabies spreads in Iraqi populations especially in schools.