Abstract: Objective  To understand the comprehensive capability of helminth detection among professionals at different level of parasitic disease control institutions and promote the overall strength of diagnosis.  Methods  Four professionals from each parasitic diseases control institutions were selected as contestant (age<45 and at least two contestant from county-level institution). The content of contest included making stool slides with Kato-Katz method (five slides in thirty minutes, a total score of 15 and 9 as passing score) and identification of eleven common helminth eggs with microscopy (ten slides, five minutes per slide, a total score of 60, 36 as passing score).  Results  The average score of making slides in 119 contestants from 30 provinces was 11.4, and 119 contestants passed accouted for 93.3%. The average score of film-reading was 22.0, and 20 contestants passed accouted for 16.8%. There were no statistically significant differences between the results in different gender, age (≤30, 31-40, >40), job title (the junior, intermediate, and senior), institution level (provincial, municipal, and county level)(P>0.05). By Kato-Katz slide-making and film-reading, the scores in contestants from provinces with schistosomiasis control task (12.1±1.7，32.1±11.5, respectively) were better than contestants from other provinces (11.1±1.8，18.1±10.5, respectively). The scores in contestants from western (18.4±11.4) were lower than those from eastern (25.2±12.4) and central (24.1±13.1) for film-reading.  Conclusion  The overall capability of parasitic disease examination is unbalanced among regions, and evidently there is a need to strengthen the capacity of phthogen detection in the disease control programs.

Key words: Parasitic disease, Technical skill, Competition, Pathogen detection, Capacity building