ABSTRACT
Soil contaminated with Taenia eggs can cause health related problems, mostly to people who come in contact with such soil either by playing with the soil or during recreational activity on the infested soil. This research work studied 184 soil samples from 16 selected recreational parks in Abuja to ascertain the prevalence population proportion of Taeniaeggs and other Helminthes eggs using zinc sulphate flotation medium with a specific gravity of 1.25. Out of the 184 soil samples examined 49 samples were contaminated with Taenia eggs. A total of 12290 Taenia eggs were found in the 49 soil samples. However, it was observed that no Taenia egg was found from the samples collected from Cortland Garden. This implies that the total Taenia eggs count were gotten from 15 recreational parks. Millennium Park had the highest Taenia eggs count of 3640 (29.62%) followed by Jabi Lake Park with 2020 (16.44%) Taenia eggs, then Orbit Garden with 1800 (14.65%) Taeniaeggs and Wuse Market Park with 1200 (9.93%) Taenia eggs. The other 11 recreational parks had Taenia eggs count of less than 900. The level of association between the prevalence rate of Taenia eggs in soil and soil pH was estimated using Pearson correlation analysis. At 0.05level of significance, the association was weak and therefore not significant. Also, the Cochran Q test was applied to determine if the population proportion of Taenia eggs is not significantly more prevalent than other geohelminth egg types in different soil textures and if the population proportion of all helminth egg types are the same for all parks locations. At 0.05 level of significance, it was observed that the population proportion of Taenia eggs is significantly more prevalent than other geohelminth egg types and the population proportion of all helminth egg types were different for all sampled park locations. Based on this, it is recommended that public awareness on appropriate hygiene practices should be put in place while putting in vi place sufficient sanitary facilities and enforcing land use regulationswill go a long way in reducing the risk of infection with Taenia.