An endemic of scabies in Kahuta,Azad Kashmir. the study shows a lack of awareness of scabies; mass treatment is needed

The study was planned to find the awareness of scabies in the forward kahuta area of azad jammu and kashmir,pakistan. for this,a questionnaire related to scabies was distributed among the patients at different walk-in clinics in the region from june 2015 to may 2016. of the 234 participants,97(41.5%) were males and 137(58.5%) were females. all of them reported with itching,but 120(51.3%) of the participants didn't even know that itching may be due to scabies which was found in 157(67%) patients,and of them,106(67.52%) knew that scabies was curable and preventable. scabies was found in common school students (n=39(24.84%),farmers (n=32(2.38%) and laborers (n=31(19.74%). due to poor awareness,a multi-dimensional approach is suggested to spread the awareness of skin diseases like scabies in the population under study and mass treatment of scabies in the area is recommended. © 2017,pakistan medical association. all rights reserved.