Albonico 1994.

Methods	Design: parallel group randomized trial Duration of study: October 1992 to February 1993 Duration of follow‐up: 18–31 days(mean 22.5 days)
Participants	Country: United Republic of Tanzania Setting: school Number included in study: 2650 Age: 6–12 years (mean 10 years) Sex: not reported Inclusion criteria: school children aged 6–12 years who had never been treated for intestinal helminths Exclusion criteria: not reported Lost to follow‐up: 356 (13.4%) Number positive for A lumbricoides: 1548 Number included in review: 1548
Interventions	Treatment strategy: screening and treat all included participants Group 1: albendazole 400 mg single dose (n = 818) Group 2: mebendazole 500 mg single dose (n = 730)
Outcomes	Outcomes included:Ascaris prevalence pre‐ and post‐treatment, cure rates, pre‐ and post‐treatment GM epg, ERR, adverse events Outcomes not included in review: efficacy of anthelmintic treatment for Trichuris, and hookworm
Notes	Diagnostic technique: Kato‐Katz Funding support: World Health Organization Programme of Intestinal Parasitic Infection Division of Communicable Diseases and by Direzione Generale per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affair
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "Before the start of the trial, sequentially numbered envelopes were prepared, each envelope containing a single dose of one of 2 antihelminthic drugs. Half of envelopes, selected using computer generated random numbers, contained albendazole (400 mg (SmithKline Beecham) and other half mebendazole 500 mg (Jansen Pharmaceutica)."
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Quote: "About 110 faecal specimens were collected each day, allocated a trial number sequentially, and whichever treatment was in the envelope with that number was administered to the child on the spot."
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Details not reported. Quote: "single blind randomized clinical trial"
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Details not reported.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	354 (13.4%) participants lost at follow‐up, and not included in analysis; 11% (148) in albendazole group and 16% (206) in mebendazole group. Loss was balanced between groups.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All stated outcomes reported.
Other bias	Low risk	No other obvious source of bias.