CES Canada Supports Deworming Program
Worms are prevalent in areas of high population where few have access to clean water and who live in a sub-standard hygienic environment. The three highest areas of prevalence of worms are the Coast, Western and Nyanza Provinces of Kenya.
Photo: Courtesy of Feed the Children
CES Canada supports the de-worming of students through a health program that provides funds to treat illness and disease. 450 KSh per student annually is designated towards medications and treatments at local clinics or hospitals when necessary. In September, 2011 CES Canada sponsored an education/health conference on “Hand-washing in School”. Some 200 delegates including all CES sponsored students from 17 secondary schools surrounding the Kakamega area of Western Province took part. This was designed along with community and provincial Health providers to counteract the high incidence of worms.
Intestinal worms undermine the health of children and affect their ability to learn. One quarter of Kenyan student absenteeism is attributed to abdominal pains which are likely due to intestinal helminth infections. In addition, older children may miss school to take care of siblings who are sick with helminth infections. Schistosomiasis is easily contracted through contact with contaminated water. Soil-transmitted helminths (STH), on the other hand, are transmitted through contact with or ingestion of fecal matter. This occurs when children do not have access to a latrine and where hand-washing with soap is not practised.
In 2009 over 3.6 million children were dewormed across 8,200 schools. The Kenyan Government launched a national program, with total costs at only 40Cdn cents per child. In addition, over 1,000 district/division-level personnel and over 16,000 teachers across 45 districts were trained during program implementation.
Photo: Courtesy of US Aid
The Kenya National School-based Deworming Program is led by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation and the Kenya Medical Research Institute. Preparations are under way for the next round of deworming, including treatment for both soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomiasis.
Impact on School Attendance: Deworming increased school participation by an estimated 7 percent. When younger children were dewormed, they attended school 15 more days per year, while older children attended approximately 10 more school days per year. The larger impact of treatment in lower grades may partially result from higher rates of infection among younger pupils.
Treatment Spillover: The entire community and those living up to 6 kilometers away from treatment schools benefited from “spillovers” of the deworming treatment. Spillover effects occur because medical treatment reduces the transmission of infections to other community members.
On January 29, 2012 Kenya launched the second phase of its national deworming programme at the 2012 World Economic Forum. The goal is to treat 5 million children annually for the next five years.
The programme is supported by Deworm the World, a cost-effective initiative treating school children for parasitic worms, which stunt development and impair education. It was developed by the World Economic Forum’s community of Young Global Leaders and has treated 37 million children worldwide to date.
Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga of Kenya increased his commitment to the scheme during the Annual Meeting, outlining the importance of grappling with the issue.
“Many people in the developing world don’t know the importance of child-based worming as one of the most serious public health-based problems. Children are often too sick and weak to study at school or even to attend school at all. Children with worms are 13% more likely to be illiterate.”
By ramping up the school-based deworming programme, he said that he hoped to see a “worms-free Kenya”.
Hundreds of millions of children worldwide are infected with parasitic worms, with serious health and economic consequences. Source: World Economic Forum
