Health department to deworm over 43 million youths

July 19, 2017

More than 43 million children and adolescents, aged 1-18 years old, are to be dewormed by the Department of Health (DOH) to enable them to get rid of soil transmitted helminths (STH). In a statement Wednesday, Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial said: "The National Deworming Month (NDM) is being done because STH is a public health problem that has detrimental impact on children’s growth and development." The health department will  deworm 17,813,379 school-aged children aged 5-18 years old enrolled in public schools. The community based deworming month will cover 10,572,404 pre-school children aged 1-4 years old, and another 15,471,889 school-aged children not enrolled in public schools through various health centers and rural health units. Ubial said STH causes anemia, malnutrition, weakness, impaired physical and cognitive development resulting in poor growth and school performance of children. "The World Health Organization (WHO) set the target that at least 75 percent deworming coverage should be attained but the Department of Health has a higher target which is 85 percent," said Ubial. Ubial urged parents and guardians to support the program. In July 2016, out of 19,250,273 enrolled public school-age children (5-18 y/o), 15,853,687 or 82.4 percent were dewormed. Also, out of the 10,599,699 pre-school age children (1-4 years old), a total of 7,875,599 or 74.3 percent have been dewormed. This January,  deworming among enrolled public school-age children was 84.5 percent or 17,060,163 out of 20,194,252 children. Among pre-school age children, deworming coverage was 74.6 percent or 7,919,273 out of 10,612,738 kids. DMS