Dr Joyce Aryee interacting with teachers and students during the tour
The Ambassador for the Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Programme, Dr Joyce Aryee, has called for social support for the mass school deworming programme.
Dr Aryee who made the call during a tour of some beneficiary schools in the Volta Region mentioned that it was important for the society to support the Ghana Health Service (GHS) initiative that seeks to promote the well-being of schoolchildren.
“What I would like each school to recognise is that it is for their own good because every teacher would like a class that is attentive and learns easily, so when you have children who because of either worms or bilharzia are not attentive even you the teacher feel frustrated,” she said.
Dr Aryee after touring some private and public schools in the North Dayi District expressed satisfaction at the level of understanding and enthusiasm with which the trained teachers were administering the Abendazol to control soil transmitted Helminthes and Praziquantel to control schistosomiasis (bilharzia).
“I’m very satisfied with what we have seen today. We went to a government school and then now we are here in a private school and the passion with which the teachers are administering the drug shows that they understand how important it is for the children and this is what we are really looking for,” she explained.
Dr Kofi Marfo of the NTD Programme, Ghana Health Service (GHS), presenting the burden of disease on the country, stated that although schistosomiasis and intestinal worm is mapped and endemic in all districts, it can be controlled by mass drug administration.
He said globally, the disease is expected to be controlled by 2020 and eliminated by 2025, hence the government’s decision to organise the mass drug administration once every year to control the diseases among children especially.
Dr Marfo said the school mass drug administration will be followed with community-based treatment of adults in highly infected communities as well as health education which will highlight the avoidance of contact with infected water and stoppage of open defecation which fosters the transfusion of the worms.
In all, schoolchildren in 108 districts are expected to be reached by the campaign.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri