Scaling Up Solutions That Work

Throughout the world countries are working to improve education, and perhaps one of the most frequently overlooked solutions is deworming. Dr. Don Bundy of the World Bank recently referred to deworming as the “magic bullet” to achieving educational and social benefits.

 

More than 600 million school-aged children are infected with intestinal worms or STH (soil transmitted helminthes). These worms eat up the nutrients a child takes in, leaving her lethargic, and in most cases, leading to anemia and stunted growth.  

 

There is a solution at hand – a solution proven to reduce school absenteeism by 25 percent and in the long-term, increase a person’s lifetime earnings by 29 percent. 

 

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a dewormed child improves. Within a day or two, the child’s body rids itself of the worms, and her energy and vitality improves markedly. With renewed energy she is able to go to school, be attentive, to learn and to play. This past year, partners, like the World Bank and WHO, have come together to galvanize the strengths of the health and education sectors to rally for institutionalizing school-based deworming to ensure that we can reach as many school children as possible so that they can feel and be part of that transformation. 

 

Johnson & Johnson answered the UN Secretary General’s Call to Action last September to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. As part of our commitment, we will increase our donation of mebendazole with the goal of reaching more than 100 million children each year in 30 to 40 countries. A year ago, we’d been providing 40 million doses of medication to treat children infected or at risk of infection with STH in eight countries. We will have doubled that number by the end of 2011. 

 

Medication isn’t the only answer to breaking the cycle of infection. In addition to distributing mebendazole, our partner, Children Without Worms (CWW), works with local ministries of health and education and various in-country nongovernmental organizations to reach children with education on how to prevent worm infection from recurring. It is a program that has worked and can and should be scaled up throughout the world. 

 

It’s been a privilege to see how well this has worked. Our work in Cambodia was a partnership with Helen Keller International that also brought together the Ministries of Health and Sports and Education and has exceeded even our expectations.  

 

Cambodia is just one example. We are looking forward to taking the next steps to bring the health and education sectors together in many more countries to deworm children and give them a new start. 

 

Through the institutionalization of school-based deworming, I believe we can eliminate STH as a public health problem.