Intestinal helminth infections, anaemia and labour productivity of female tea pluckers in Bangladesh

We conducted a randomized clinical intervention trial over 24 weeks on a tea estate in north‐east Bangladesh to investigate the effect of iron supplementation and anthelmintic treatment on the labour productivity of adult female tea pluckers. A total of 553 full‐time tea pluckers, not pregnant and not breastfeeding, were randomly assigned to one of the four intervention groups: group 1 received iron supplementation on a weekly basis, group 2 received anthelmintic treatment at the beginning and half‐way through the trial (week 12), group 3 received both iron supplementation as group 1 and anthelmintic treatment as group 2, and group 4 was a control group and received placebos. No significant difference in labour productivity was found between the four intervention groups…