The New York Times recently published an article, titled "In India, a Small Pill, With Positive Side Effects" recognising the importance of overcoming the challenges of advocacy and awareness for achieving widespread reach of school-based deworming programmes.
The article published in the NYT's Opinionator Blog specifically praised Deworm the World, the organisation which works towards improving the health and education of school-age children across the globe by supporting governments and development partners to expand school-based deworming programmes.
Currently 600 million school-age children across the globe are at risk of being infected with parasitic worms, which harm their health and development, limit their participation in school, and decrease their earnings as adults.
The article highlighted some key achievements of DtW, importantly that of Delhi deworming, an initiative carried out by the Government of Delhi in February this year, "to stamp out the widespread but neglected ailment."
The NYT's blog noted that "for a year and a half, Deworm the World lobbied government officials in Delhi to get approvals and plan the campaign."
The article also mentioned the strong evidence of deworming's short- and long-term effects as a key reason why other programmes have been initiated with support from DtW.
Other DtW initiatives highlighted in the article included:
Bihar School-Based Deworming (carried out in 2011) and
Kenyan National School-based Deworming which is set to relaunch later this year.
Read the New York Times Article
