The Government of Cross River State in southern Nigeria has flagged off the 2022 deworming exercise for 800 thousand children between the ages of five to fourteen against a tropical disease known as Helminthiasis.
According to the World Health Organization, (WHO) Helminthiasis is an infestation with one or more intestinal parasitic roundworms that include whipworms, hookworms and ascaris transmitted by eggs in human feaces, which in turn contaminate soil in areas where sanitation is poor.
The Director General of the Cross River Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong flagged off the deworming exercise at the Government Primary School Anantigha in Calabar South local government area and said that the five-day intervention would target 800 thousand children in the eighteen local government areas.
Ekpenyong said, “For this intervention, we are hoping that we can hit 800 thousand children and we will be glad if we even go beyond that, but that is our target. We are targeting all the children across the state. We are giving them Mebendazole in the entire 18 local government areas.”
Preventive measure
Dr. Ekpenyong, who represented the governor, Professor Ben Ayade, said that the government through the Ministry of Health and the State’s Primary Healthcare Development Agency was taking steps to ensure that children, who spend more time outdoors, would be dewormed.
She noted, “This exercise is to ensure that our children, especially those in primary and secondary schools across the length and breadth of Cross River State and between the ages of 5 to 14 years, are dewormed against the soil-transmitted helminthiasis.
“This is because helminthiasis is one of the very common tropical diseases in our communities and when there is worm infestation in a child, such a child would be affected in so many ways. It could prevent the child from absorbing nutrients and vitamins from food. It can also cause problems like anemia and stunted growth,” Ekpenyong stated.
She further stated that about 1.4 billion people were infested globally with helminthiasis which were endemic in nine local government areas within Cross River, which informed the partnership with the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to achieve success.
The Director General said, “It is a very common disease. Globally there are about 1.4 billion people affected by soil-transmitted helminthiasis and even here in Cross River State, we have 9 local government areas that are really endemic. So, we always try to act proactively to make sure we protect our children in Cross River State.”
Nutritional requirement
A representative of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Mr. Chogudo Sule said that the intervention was relevant to the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, which is one of the cluster programmes of the National Social Investment Programme under the supervision of the ministry.
Sule said, “The school feeding programme was concerned about the daily nutritional requirement of school children across Nigeria, which can be achieved through nutritious meals in conjunction with periodic deworming to boost the immunity of children and assist their bodies fight against infections.”
While stating that every child has the right to enjoy good health, he urged stakeholders and partners in the deworming exercise to act with the greatest sense of diligence, professionalism and dedication to ensure the targeted children received the intervention.
One of the parents, Mrs. Florence Effiong described the gesture as one of the best measures by the Nigerian and Cross River governments to improve the health of children nationwide and advised other parents, caregivers and guardians to ensure that their wards within the age brackets received the deworming tablets.
Olusola Akintonde
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