Lorine Emenike
Rivers State Ministry of Health in partnership with the state ministry of Education and Evidence Action, a Non-Governmental Organization has flagged-off this year’s state school-based deworming exercise at St. Andrew primary schools in Port Harcourt.
The event had state stakeholders of Heath, education, the media and others in attendance.
In her opening address, Mrs Caroline Wali, Permanent Secretary of the Rivers State Ministry of Heath said the state deworming of children was deemed necessary after a survey that was carried out in 2014 by the Ministry of Health and Education ascertained endemicity status of soil-transmitted Helminthes.
She said “The survey showed that a lot of children tend to be anaemic, they don’t concentrate on their school work in classrooms. They were always complaining of one illness or the other. The survey also showed that a lot of children have worms, so based on these findings we do deworm children from the ages of 4 to 15 yearly”
Mrs Wali called on parents and guardians to avail their children for deworming. She said the exercise is ongoing in local government areas as well. She said apart from schools, the deworming tablets for children can be obtained free from any healthcare facility accessible to individuals.
She added that children can get these worms from the environment, fruits and vegetables that are not properly washed, adding that the presence of worms in the human body takes part of our nutrients.
She stressed the need for every child to be worm free.
She said “Deworming of school children leads to the control of anaemia amongst them, it improves their concentration and capacity to learn, it improves the nutritional intake of the children, as well as their immunity. Above all, it helps break the transmission cycle resulting in less worm infection in the society at large”
On his part, Mr Joseph Kumbo, the South-South program manager of Evidence Action, said that assessments conducted in the past have shown that 23 local government in Rivers State is endemic to soil Helminthes. He said his organization is in the state to support the state government in the deworming of school children. He said the deworming medicines were made available by the World Health Organization.
Mr Jeseph said that this year’s intervention round will be covering 17 local government which are Obio Akpor, Abua/ Oduah, Ahoada West, Ogu/Bolo, Etche, Akuku Toru, Asari Toru, Degema, Tai, Khana, Gokana, Opobo/ Nkoro and others.
He noted that children from age 4-14 that are not in school are also eligible to take the medicine. He encouraged parents and guidance to walk into any healthcare facility accessible to them and obtain the Medicine for their children.
