Azmat Manzoor, Muhammed Tayyib, Tahira Tasnim.
Anemia in school children.
Pak Postgrad Med J Jan ;14(1):44-7.

This study was carried out on eleven hundred children to evaluate the extent to which anaemia is present in the school children of Lahore . They belonged to various government and private schools, and came from varying socio-economic and cultural backgrounds . They were aged between 6 years and 11 years. 627 (57%) of them were boys , while the remaining 473 (43%) were girls. 116 (10.5%) of the students had anaemia as analyzed from their haemoglobin levels , which were below 11g /dl. 65 (10.36%) of these were boys and the remaining 51 (10.78%) were girls. On red blood cell morphology of the blood films , the commonest morphology of anaemia was microcytic (62.9%) and hypochromic (50%) . This was followed by normocytic and normochromic (29.3%) morphology. Macrocytosis (10.3%), anisocytosis (15.5%) , poikilocytosis (9.4%) and target cells (6%) were also noted. The study shows that anaemia , which is associated with many adverse effects , is fairly common in the school children of Lahore . This important public health issue needs to be addressed on a war footing with sound strategies aimed at its eradication.

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