ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary Secretary for Ministry of Planning Development and Reforms Kanwal Shauzab on Wednesday announced that the government has decided to inaugurate the first-ever ‘Islamabad Deworming Initiative’
While addressing the inaugural session of the initiative, Kanwal Shauzab said that trained school teachers will administer free of cost deworming medicine, which is universally recognised as a safe and cost-effective treatment.
“The Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan has expressed serious concerns on the high prevalence of stunting among children and intestinal worm infestation is one of the major reasons. To curb this issue, the government has initiated a school-based deworming programme,” she told.
She explained that a total of 250,000 children would be dewormed out of the 570,000 children aged between 5-15 who are at risk of infection with intestinal worms in the first phase at all government schools in Islamabad.
She said that the programme was to be carried out with the collaboration of the Ministry of Federal Education and the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination.
The parliamentary secretary highlighted that worm infections interfere with nutrient uptake, can lead to anaemia, malnourishment and impaired mental and physical development, and pose a serious threat to children’s health, education and productivity.
“A survey found that approximately 17 million children across Pakistan are in need of regular deworming,” she informed.
She further said that a training cascade structure has been implemented to train teachers from selected schools that have been given deworming tablets, necessary information and advocacy material and that community mobilisation campaigns have also been launched to encourage the participation of both enrolled and non-enrolled children.
“To facilitate programmatic improvements, a strong monitoring and evaluation system is being adopted,” she said.
Deworming day is set to be conducted on Jan 31, 2019.
