We just received 500,000 doses of de-worming medicine in Port-au-Prince. We will distribute the pills through our local Water Boards in 23 neighborhoods and several school systems in the city.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says worms eat up to 20% of a child’s nutritional intake everyday. Haitians are among the poorest fed children in the world, and no child there can afford to lose 20% of their food.
The effects of such losses are anemia, vitamin deficiencies, a weak immune system, lethargy, and poor cognitive development. Intestinal worms magnify the impact of chronic diarrhea from bad water, and can make the difference between life and death for children.
Public Health experts at Johns Hopkins University say 2 billion people – one third of the world’s population – carry hookworms, roundworms, whipworms or schistosomiasis. The most used drugs for intestinal worms are albendazole and mebendazole. One pill costs just over a penny and has a shelf life of four years. Each pill is enough to treat one child for a year. We bought 500,000.
The World Bank recommends a de-worming program working through the schools. They argue that in highly infected areas broad scale de-worming will lower the risk of reinfection for all children.
We will follow the World Bank’s program. The Bank argues against screening children for worms in high infection areas. “Individual screening offers no benefits. And, it is not effective. It costs four to ten times more than the treatment itself.” Adding, “…the treatment is safe even for those children who are uninfected.”
Studies in developing countries confirm that children with intense worm infections perform poorly in learning ability tests, cognitive function and educational achievement. Test differences equal to 6 months in age were seen in 60 million children with heavy worm infections. The World Bank concluded, “De-worming was the most cost-effective method of improving school participation.”
The Johns Hopkins University went even further: “The number of childhood deaths indirectly related to worms is huge. An estimated 3.9 million children die each year from lower respiratory infections, 1.8 million from diarrheal diseases, and roughly 1 million from malaria. In many cases, worms greatly weaken children’s immune systems, making them susceptible to those killer diseases.”
International Action received the de-worming medicine through Aaron Jackson, whose non-profit Planting Peace has worked in Haiti since 2005. Jackson was featured as a CNN Hero recently for his de-worming campaign in Haiti. For further Internet info see: PlantingPeace.org; World Bank, “School Deworming”; and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, “WHO Deworming.”