Deworming school children costs just 20 cents a year , WHO says

School children in Africa can be treated for intestinal worms and schistosomes – the parasites that cause bilharzia – in association with school feeding programmes for as little as 20 US cents per year, an expert from the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday. Lorenzo Savioli, the head of parasitic diseases at WHO, told a conference of education ministers from nine countries in the Sahel that using schools to dose children twice a year against worms and – where appropriate schistosomes –was a highly effective method of improving child health and enhancing the capacity to learn. “Despite reinfection recurring all the time, this is worth it,” he told the conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar. The meeting looked at ways to increase school enrolment and improve child health through school feeding programmes and the provision of clean water and basic healthcare in schools. Bilharzia is transmitted by parasites present in snails that live in still fresh water and is a major problem for communities that live near lakes and dams. The WHO reckons it is directly responsible for the death of 200,000 people per year in Africa alone. In some countries, such as Uganda, it is regarded as the third largest threat to public health after malaria and HIV/AIDS. Savioli said that in Guinea, where the World Bank has funded a nationwide deworming programme for the past four years, the presence of schistosomes detected by urine and blood tests on children had dropped by 70 percent. "It is really an example of how things should be done," he stressed, noting that the programme there was being run by a health expert within the Ministry of Education. A new deworming programme, also backed by the World Bank was currently being set up in Senegal, he added. Savioli said it had taken years to get health ministries to agree to let teachers and other non-medical staff administer deworming drugs to children, but he stressed that this could be done safely, effectively and at very low cost. Children over one year old could safely be given such medicines and there was no need to screen children for infection before administering the dose. The tablets could be safely given to all children present in blanket fashion and 178 million children in Africa alone would benefit enormously from such treatment, he said. Savioli said deworming has the biggest impact on the poorest and most undernourished communities. “The most vulnerable children benefit the most,” he stressed. Savioli said treating children for worms made them brighter and more alert and better able to absorb essential nutrients from food. For example, he said, worm infestations prevented children from deriving the full benefit of vitamin A and iron supplements to their diet. The health expert also stressed that controlling worms made children less vulnerable to other common diseases and reduced the chances of their developing health complications in later life. Savioli said the single tablet treatment, delivered once every six months, normally cost between 25 and 50 US cents per child per year. But by combining the treatment with school feeding programmes, distribution and administration charges could be reduced still further, cutting the cost to as little as 20 US cents. He pointed out that an informal group called Partners for Parasite Control had been formed to bring together the governments of countries where worm infestations are endemic with research institutions, donors, specialised aid agencies and drug companies to tackle the problem. Savioli said this organisation had set a target of treating 75 percent of all children at risk in the world by 2010, but at present, only six to seven percent were covered. He said it was essential to encourage competition between drug manufacturers to keep down prices and to persuade them to manufacture high quality medicines within the countries most affected.