Over 6 million school-going children aged between 2 and 14 will be dewormed after the Ministry of Health (MoH) and that of education launched a deworming exercise in Kirinyaga County on Thursday.
Consequently, 28,000 teachers drawn from primary and secondary schools also got trained on how to administer the drugs and how to deal with any side effects or unexpected results.
The exercise that was launched by the director in charge Dr Stephen Kaliti said the ministry has preferred to use the schools infrastructure so as to reach more children.
“We are using schools so as to reach quite a number of school-going children,” said Kaliti, revealing that statistics show the prevalence of worms among children has gone down from 35 to 5 per cent, with the current campaign targeting at further lowering it to less than one per cent.
Stephen Mbaroko, the head of primary school education at the ministry, noted that the deworming exercise will ensure the pupils are in school after freeing them from parasites.
“Quite a number of school-going children fail to attend school due to worm infestation. With the deworming exercise we are sure they be in school throughout,” he said, adding that the training for teachers will also include hygiene and cleanliness both at school and at home so as to ensure the pupils stay, learn and sleep in clean environments to keep away the worms.
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