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USAID/Zambia support for deworming exercise helps to keep school children active
Mrs. Finess Chichelo, a mother of eight, always worries when any of her children loses interest in school. She lives in a village in Choma, about 300 kilometers south of the Zambian capital, Lusaka, and is confident that education will provide a secure and prosperous future for her children. And so she became even more worried when her 11-year-old twins, both in Grade Five at Maluma Basic School were suddenly reluctant to go to school and showed signs of fatigue early in the morning. They couldn't even play normal games with other children. The clinic, five kilometers away, diagnosed neither malaria nor diarrhea, the most common diseases in the area. It was not until she attended a meeting at the school that she had the answer to her problem. Her children could be harboring intestinal worms, or suffering from bilharzia. The headmaster, Mr. Simon Moomba, explained that worms were the most common causes for degenerate behavior among pupils. He invited parents to bring their children to school on March 7, 2007 for deworming."That's why I'm here. I want my children to be dewormed so they can always be active," she said. The headmaster was happy that the school's 376 pupils - 180 girls and 196 boys - were participating in the deworming exercise supported by USAID through the Ministry of Education. Deworming reduces the prevalence of parasitic worm infections. The children were also treated for bilharzia, a disease caused by parasitic worms, common in tropical regions where ponds, streams and irrigation canals harbor bilharzia-transmitting snails. Children who have been dewormed are more attentive and skip class less often. The American Institute of Research, through the Community Health and Nutrition, Gender and Education Support (CHANGES2) program, provides technical assistance to the Ministry of Education to carry out the exercise in 400 selected schools every year.The program also provides children with vitamin A supplements and parents get instructions on skills-based health education, HIV/AIDS prevention, and malaria prevention and treatment. A three year study has demonstrated a significant reduction in the prevalence of both hookworm and urinary schistosomiasis among the pupils, after two annual rounds of deworming. The interventions have had a significant impact on children's educational ability, prompting the Ministry of Education to commit more funds and extend the program to four more provinces, aiming for full national coverage by 2008. Top of Page |
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