The Ministry of Health, in a bid to reduce the number of cases of anemia in the country is launching a massive deworming campaign for children countrywide.
The Ministry has come up with a strategy of working with school health programs in the country and also involving religious institutions and markets to reach all the children during the child health months of April and October yearly.
According to Dr. Charles Olaro, the Director of curative services at the Ministry, in Uganda 53 percent of children below 5 years have anemia because of the worms and 39 percent of pregnant women are also affected”.
“Deworming is mostly neglected by individuals yet worms normally cause a lot of damage, they duplicate they cause anemia, loss of appetite, body weakness and also contribute maternal and child mobility. So, we have asked government to priority it,” he said.
According to Dr. Olara, the Ministry received 600 doses of deworming tablets from Food for the Hungry organization.
Dorothy Namayanja, the Program Delivery Manager Food for Hungry, said that according to the Uganda Demographic and Health survey, 29 percent of children 6 to 59 months are stunted, which prompted them to support the ministry of health to scale up evidence-based nutrition intervention.
According to Namayanja, they expect to increase growth and weight gain in children, increased resistance to other infections and improvement in school attendance, and improvement in children’s ability to perform in school.
The deworming tablets are to be distributed to the regions of Acholi, Lango, West Nile, Busoga, and Sebei region for the start according to the Ministry of health and the quantities they have in store.
The deworming tables will be distributed through Uganda National Medical stores to different districts to promote immunization and micro nutrient supplementation.
The 4.5 dozes donated will only cover 20 percent of the national need for the upcoming child health days in April.